In the Valley of Death: A Nomad's Odyssey
by warriorfist
Summary: Bucky Barnes is dead. Or is he? Thrust into a strange version of the afterlife, he is joined by unlikely allies in the fight for their survival in an ever-changing landscape. Above all, he must find the answer: where do ideas go when they die?
1. Prologue

_A/N: For those returning readers who might be wondering, I moved the Foreword for this story to my profile and replaced the first chapter with the Prologue. Hopefully, it will make for a stronger first impression and won't drive any readers away with the prospect of having to wade through rambling walls of text._

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><p>James Barnes was straining to hold on to his fleeing consciousness as they loaded his stretcher onto the medevac. The first thing that he noticed was the blades.<p>

Giant blades were flitting in and out of his vision, slowly, deliberately, like crude scythes. The image seemed to last for an eternity, then disappeared almost in a flash. It was as though time had gone very wonky in these last few minutes.

The noise was deafening. The chopper lifted off, and James felt weightless.

A medic was busy cauterizing the stump on his left shoulder; it didn't matter, his extremities had gone numb in the first few minutes. The medic moved on to the gaping hole in the middle of his chest, and promptly realised there was nothing he or any surgeon worth his salt could do about that.

"Ma'am...I am sorry. He's a fighter, but the wounds are too severe. He's not going to-"

"Don't!" Natasha retorted.

Natasha was a mess. Her ageless, pale features were marred by the running mascara on her cheeks. James had never seen her so vulnerable before. He hated himself for doing this to her.

He tried to say something to her. Something along the lines of "Relax; dying ain't what it used to be. That trick never works!" But did he really want his last words to be that corny?

He wanted to say that he loved her.

He wanted to talk about their past, but that always hurt. He was in enough pain already.

But still, he had to try.

"Nat...I..." he managed to gurgle out, hand trembling as he tried to reach out to her. The effort exhausted him entirely. His already blurry vision now was now starting to fail him completely.

"He is fading," the medic announced, fingers on James' pulse, "If you have any last words..."

Natasha's lips trembled, and she seemed to hesitate. Then reluctantly, she nodded, eyes tightly shut as she drew closer to James' ears.

She mumbled something. James couldn't hear her.

He was already falling.

This was where he had been headed all along. The Fall. The Explosion. Suspended in air. That sense of nothingness where his left arm should be. Deja vu didn't begin to describe it.

He had escaped it these past few years, but the Fall hadn't forgotten him. It had been waiting for him all this time. The Fall would lead to the Water, and that's where he had been headed the entire time. Frozen in a block of ice. Forgotten by history.

Everything has a place in the grand scheme of all things. This was his rock on the totem pole. Everything was starting to fall into place.

It all made sense.

This was how it was meant to be.

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><p><strong><em>Prologue: Inferno<em>**

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><p>Ares waited. Patience was not his virtue, but he had learned enough of it to get by. Before long, the answer came, and as he had anticipated, it was not a pleasing one.<p>

"No," Charon stated. Despite his countenance- a thin, scraggy, grey loincoth was all that garbed his withered old flesh, dried sinews and all, with wooly, hoary locks of white obscuring his face, save for his fierce, yellow eyes- the old man possessed a quiet, if strained, dignity.

"Ah. So your feet remain on either side of the line in the sand, as they are wont to." Ares was understandably disappointed, but he did not let it show on his haughty features. "But if you will entertain me further? Elaborate."

"Very well." Charon had just finished harboring his boat to the modest dock, and now he turned the entirety of his attention to the War god. "Your tactics are sound, but your strategy is not as fortuitous. Whether be it by fate or choice, you have ever been an agent of chaos. Unfortunately, order is the perennial victor in our realm of concern. For comparison's sake, you are akin to this..." Charon picked up a nondescript pebble and flung as far as he could into the water with his feeble (but surprisingly hardy) arms. A multitude of ripples poured forth from the point of impact, but after a few moments Acheron returned to its state of dreary serenity.

Charon would have proceeded to explain the meaning behind this demonstration, but Ares raised a big, meaty palm, his beady eyes contracted towards his prominent nose. It was clear that the 'elaboration' had been a bit too patronizing.

"Your point has been made, I would think. I take my leave then," Ares placed his impressive war helm on his stocky scalp, "with the implicit trust that none of this will reach the ears of your current masters. Fare ye well, ferryman. I leave you to your work."

"Have you ever known me to be a tattle-tale?" Charon muttered, mostly to himself; the patron-deity of Sparta was well on his way. Charon was mildly amused- and daresay, even impressed- by the tact displayed the War god. Death, it seemed, had tempered his rage. Before, it was all surface, a mighty, blunt bludgeon with which he sought to flatten any and all opponents. Now, it seemed more akin to a finely sharpened dagger, wielded deftly and cunningly at the most opportune times to maximise the damage dealt.

These were interesting times in Hades.

Charon turned his attention to his work. The rabble of freshly dead were lumbering towards his boat. Generally bereft of any sense of their state, they sometimes aroused themselves to brief sparks of cognizance. In such moments, they were prone to grumble, bicker and cause other forms of general unrest. And Charon was prone to whack such offenders with his mighty oar. And that silenced them again into blissful non-identity.

It was hard work, and there was no reward whatsoever. But such was his lot in eternity, and he would make do with it.

As he stood by the side of the boat, he outstretched his palm in front of the newest passenger and asked, in a hoarse, broken voice, that question he had repeated an endless times since the pantheon's creation.

"You have the coin?" or so it went.

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><p>Scoundrels! Beggars, the whole lot of them!<p>

He had forever dealt with the penniless, but they had never proliferated within the flock to this degree. Soon, there were none left for Charon to ferry but the destitute, and they swarmed the shores by the thousands, an endless stream of them arriving from whatever godforsaken battlefield had spawned them. Uncultured, misbegotten swines! And they were so many. He hadn't seen such numbers since the height of his pantheon's influence.

He was on his boat, quickly unfastening the moored rope from the dock. A dozen of the dead were approaching his vessel, wading into the water, and the unfiltered contact with the sin residues of the processed dead stung their souls. But they were far too ignorant to take such suffering into account.

"Back. Back, I say!" the ferryman bellowed. The rope unfastened, he threw it into the water and leapt into his boat with surprising agility.

As if following his cue, they now proceeded to swarm his vessel from both sides. Charon responded in appropriate fashion with his oar, smacking the would-be boarders away with the front blade. Even the blind and sense-deprived can gauge fear and terror, if only vaguely; and thus they recoiled from further attempts at unlawful entry and huddled away at the shore.

Charon took his chance, and oared deeper into the river, quickly increasing his distance between the growing horde. He spared a last, scornful glance at those rudderless sheep, before turning his mind to the present dilemma.

Something was afoot. And it was interfering with his work in a grossly unbecoming manner. Whatever the cause behind this sordid affair, Charon was determined to find out. He looked at the water. Wispy, ethereal remnants of mortal sorrow peeked through the dark surface. Their vague, nondescript faces (which always seemed to sport an uniform frown) seemed more alert than usual.

The rivers would provide the answer. He was sure of it.

With new purpose, he began heaving his oar, driving his boat towards the heart of Acheron.

And thus began the journey.

Unfortunately, for the ferryman of the dead, it wasn't going to be very fruitful.

The languages of the rivers were lost artifacts, and even an old soul like Charon was but crudely versed in such repertoire. Shunned and neglected, the streams of Hades had long outgrown the need for earnest communication. Their words had become warped beyond recognition, and even their speakers barely understood the entirety of their faint mumblings.

Despite their reluctance, the rivers talked about great many things. They could not help it, for the souls passing through them left behind sediments of all kinds of mortal idiosyncracies, and such trivial trinkets spurred the great waters into flickering bouts of verbosity.

Having travelled to the heart of ancient Acheron, where such chatter was likely to be most frequent, Charon laid his ears to the floor his boat and remained still. At first it was all gibberish, of course. It took a while for his rusty mind to remember the precise details of such linguistics, and when he did, the wailings became all too apparent. The aftertaste of denial, of the sorrow that came with the realisation that life as one knew was now well and truly over. It was nothing Charon wasn't accustomed to, by then. He sorted out through the irrelevant anecdotes and focused solely on current developments.

Acheron spoke most often of a new war, waged by an ancient, forgotten entity whose name musn't be invoked. The world quaked at his growing power, and if not for any last moment miracles it was doomed to fall under his dominion.

Charon was not impressed in the slightest. He remembered the Titanomachy, where Zeus Pater of the flowing red locks ascended to the sky throne, and the Gigantomachy, where Gaia herself raged to bring Olympus down through her deviant spawns. Such struggles were epic and legendary precisely for their rarity in occurrence. Wars and death tolls were far too common in this day and age. Nowadays, there was a crusade to bring down the earth or the cosmos every other afternoon.

As Hades had managed fine enough during those most recent struggles, logic dictated that it should not be affected in the slightest by this latest scuffle.

Consequently, Charon spoke to Acheron directly in order to gain a greater understanding of this particular dilemma. After the initial surprise of being addressed so bluntly and explicitly, the river tried to overcompensate and launched into a grandiose, meandering tirade as it desperately sought to entertain this unexpected guest. Charon was amused; both of them were old souls, and perhaps, Acheron was even older than he. But it was quite difficult to carry a conversation with an entity which lost coherence at every third sentence. And even then, Charon was hardly in the mood to socialise.

The god-river was disappointed, but Charon even more so when the latter realised that the former had no answers for his queries. "But go to my children," Acheron the father spoke in that fluid, flummery tongue, "they are more well-versed in such matters than I."

And thus Charon crossed over to Styx, through the great Marsh at the center of Hades. The younger tributary of Acheron, Styx had always been an irritable fellow. In its own perspective, it had drawn the shortest straw of the lot- to be chosen as the receptacle for all of man's anger and sullenness. But that day, the river was even more vexed than usual.

"And what troubles you so?" Charon inquired of the errant stream, and Styx was quick to reply in a hateful, venal scowl- for its tongue was easily the most well-versed amongst all its peers and sires. "Look thither, at yon shores to thine right! Savages! Do they not know the import of such hallowed grounds?"

And Charon turned to where Styx pointed, where he saw, to his eternal surprise, a strange gathering of the newly dead. They were all locked in various modes of assault. Naked and muddied, they not only struck each other with their hands, but head, chest and feet, mangling each other with their teeth, bite by bite. Such a show of wrathfulness bamboozled the ferryman greatly- for never before had he seen destitute wander so far away from the docks, let alone engage in such acts of brutality.

"And there persists the gurgling! Look, how my skin itches at such poking!" Styx bellowed spitefully. And Charon looked, and saw thousands of tiny bubbles spurt out at the river's surface.

Charon was truly perplexed, but he had no time for such perplexions. He hurried to his principal inquiry, and was disappointed once more when Styx yelled a resounding non-affirmative. "But go to my mirror stream, if you must. He might care to take note of such happenings!"

And Charon ferried himself to Phelegethon of the crimson, boiling froth which ran parallel to the river of hate. It was a trek that Charon wasn't entirely keen to undertake. Though his vessel was made of hardy wood, scrounged and scavenged from the leftovers of the gods, it was not made to withstand the rigors of extended contact with volcanic lava. When he arrived, the river of fire was in something of a mood. Small spires of brief flames shot three feet above into the air. Charon knew it to be a sadistic soul- but he had never found the river so clearly amused.

"And what keeps you in such high spirits?" he inquired, warily, for even a merry Phlegethon was a dangerous river. "O, can you not hear them?" it whispered gleefully, "I have no inkling as to how they came to be here, but this is most fortuitous, indeed! Look! Peek, if you can, below my fiery hide!"

And Charon looked down, though he had to squint a long time to make out anything beyond the glowing magma at the surface. Then he saw fingernails pierce through it, connected to decaying, bony finger-flesh, before they were dragged down by some unseen force.

"How they bargain! Peddlers of the most wondrous sort, they are. A precious moment or two, a marriage here and there, a son or daughter or father gladly traded for one's own safe passage!" Charon was unnerved by how eloquent the river had become at such suffering. "But the wranglers at the horizon spoil the fun, with their sticks and stones and pitchforkses! How uncouth."

Charon would have asked of these wranglers, had he not seen them, first. Charcoal-skinned demons stood guard, cackling madly at nothing in particular. And what were they doing there? Charon did know. Too many unanswered questions; it left a bad aftertaste in his mouth.

The ferryman had braced himself for the inevitable letdown, but neverthless felt that familiar sting upon hearing that Phelegethon, too, had no true clue as to the cause of such disturbances. "But hold! Did you not hear? Father's elder spawn is in a most troubling predicament," the river of fire advised furthermore, "Make haste to his domain, for his pathways are shifting and twisting even as we tarry with vapid words."

Indeed, it took Charon more than a few detours to reach the waters of Cocytus, first tributary of the god-river that was Acheron. And more than once did the ferryman encounter unexpected bends; they ever forced him to travel downwards, edging ever closer to the dreaded abyss that is Tartarus. His instincts informed him that he was on the correct path, but memory told him otherwise. Fortunately, he reached Cocytus before long; but he found the river changed immeasurably. He could travel no further by boat, for the river of lamentation was now completely frozen! And it couldn't be called a river anymore, even; more like a lake, judging from its shrunken dimensions. He oared to the nearby shores and tied his oar to the back of the vessel. He resolved to carry the boat on his back for the time being, for he was wary to leave his prized possession unguarded in such strange territory.

When he felt he had walked long enough, he approached the frozen waters, and with a mighty heave, pushed through a sizeable chunk of ice to reach the water below. His withered flesh felt almost petrified at the sheer coldness of it. He quickly pulled his hands away and put his ear as near to the exposed water as he dared to, and listened. The river was even more despondent than usual. And Charon asked, "Why are you thus dispirited?"

Cocytus wailed in reply, "The distress is but too much for me to bear. Long have I bore the burden of man's rueful nature, all the despair and woe to be experienced at death having extracted and distilled through my body entire. But now I am riddled with the corpses of the faithless! Can you not see?"

And Charon peeked through the water, and he saw countless humanoid figures, the details obscured by formation of ice around their bodies. Hades was changing before his eyes. He asked Cocytus once more, "And why are you in such a state, frozen and immobile?" Cocytus whimpered, "I know not the cause. Perhaps the Old Man does, whose tears now flow into my flesh and nourishes it, or perhaps, plagues it with this newfound pestilence. Thither he sits, on yon distant mount."

Charon turned towards the mountain, to see a distinct statue, a waterfall flowing from its head. He surveyed his surroundings a bit more, and saw stranger sights still. Further into the landmass, a massive figure wandered, naked, old and venerable, with beards flowing down to his knees. He knew of this one: the giant Antaeus, though how the creature had gotten to here the ferryman had no clue. Further still, he saw similar figures bound to the surrounding hills, hoisted near their peaks; he recognised Briareus, Tityos and Typhon, whom Zeus had hurled down to the great abyss at the end of the Gigantomachy.

And now Charon was truly afraid, for he feared that he had descended into Tartarus itself, or perhaps the pit itself had been mangled and warped into a caricature akin to the rivers themselves. He made haste and prepared to move, but then saw a most terrible vision; he now saw what had rendered frozen the river of lament, though he now wished that the answer eluded him ever more. A hideous, terrible beast was trapped further into the stream, its huge, bat-like wings flapping at rare intervals with such force as to create gale-force frigid winds which stuck the river solid. In shape, it was like that of a lion; coupled with the wings, it looked like a deformed Sphinx. Though it had one head, there were three faces on three sides- the front was fiery red, and the other two were whitish-yellow and coal-black. All three mouths were gnawing on what appeared to be mortal souls. Tears and demonic blood spewed forth from six eyes.

And Charon did not wait to ask Cocytus any more questions, for he knew that the river was as clueless as he, but fled the land as fast as his feeble feet could carry him. "Wait! Do not leave!" the river wailed, for misery loved company. Charon paid no heed, but sprinted head-on, shutting his eyes and ears from taking note of any more bewildering happenings.

He ran and ran, until his bones started to ache and he had to stop by to catch his breath. It was then that he noticed the water, which was liquid and flowing smoothly once again. Grateful, he went to the shore and drooped downwards, intending to take a mouthful to quench his thirst; but then, he saw the shades in the distant glades, working mechanically at repetitive, menial chores. He instantly recoiled away from the waters. He knew where he was; the fields of Elysium, bordered by Lethe, the river of forgetfulness, where souls accepted their fate and left their former lives completely so that they might start their existence anew.

And Charon knew instinctively, that it was Lethe all along which would guide him down the true path, for to think otherwise meant that he was lost, abandoned by fate to be consumed within the sweeping, inexplicable changes that were devouring Hades. Thus he set his boat down on the waters, freed his oar and resumed his journey once more.

Lethe did not speak, unlike the others. There was no voice of oblivion, only the totality of the silence that followed in its wake. There was a cool, pleasant breeze which flowed along the breadth of the stream, and it put his troubled mind at ease. Yet, the comfort of oblivion was not something he entirely cherished, and he hastened to escape the serene place.

And thus he came upon a great mist, so dense and so wide that it completely obscured any vision of what lay beyond. The old man braced himself, before resolving to oar straight through. His vision being rendered useless, his other senses also became functionally irrelevant. For a moment which seemed to persist abnormally long, Charon felt that his boat might tip over and he might fall into an endless, gaping chasm.

Then the feeling passed, and the mists gave way.

He wasn't in Hades, anymore.

The ray of sunshine poking through the foggy air stung his light-deprived eyes, but they grew accustomed to it after a while. He glanced upwards, and saw clear, blue skies. And there he saw a flash of silver, high up in the atmosphere; then a dozen more flashes streaked through.

He realised that they were growing closer.

Great wings of majestic plumage were flapping above the clouds, and soon, he caught a glimpse of the full glory: Pegasi, mounted by distinctly human figures as they sailed through the air. They were descending gradually, in a steady trajectory set for a distant target.

They must be omens, the old man thought, and resolved to follow their trail for the time being. As he did so, he took more time to fully take in his surroundings. Judging by the stillness of the water, he realised that he had to be in a lake rather than a river. A small island loomed in the horizons, surrounded completely by marshlands.

He did not know where he was; his steadfast instincts now proved useless in such unfamiliar territory. A curious feeling enveloped him- a tinge of alienation, followed by the soothing knowledge that here at least, he might be safe for the time being. But if Hades had fallen quickly to such unexplained phenomena, would anywhere else truly be safe? He wished not to ponder further on the matter, and instead, oared onwards.

Eventually, he got near enough to the target to see what it was- a small boat moored in the middle of nowhere, occupied by three dainty figures garbed in flowing, unflattering robes of white. The boat was more spacious and wider than his, he remarked sub-consciously. But almost immediately afterwards he noticed the reason for their pause- a glint of metal caught his eye, and judging by the way the figures were fishing it out of the water, he figured it was the armor doing the trick, worn by some unfortunate drowner, no doubt.

As he looked at these three maidens, with flowing, golden locks, their innocent, almost pure serenity struck him, for he hadn't seen such sincerity in purpose in all his long years. And as they fetched the man out of the water- for it had to be a male, judging by the form- three of the horse-riders descended towards this most curious sight, and Charon saw that these were maidens too.

But these were shield-maidens- they had to be. Even if they were not garbed in strange, plated armor, they carried themselves with a certain assured haughtiness, that came naturally to warriors of accomplished stature, who knew their strengths and limits all too well. They had seen him approach, of course, but did not object; and when he had reached sufficient proximity, they introduced themselves as Eir Mercy-Giver, Herfjötur Host-fetter, and Skögul Storm-bender. They were in deep discourse with the ladies of the lake, and they spoke in alien tongues which constantly morphed phonetically such that it eluded his grasping mind.

For the longest time, he stood there on his boat, leaning on his oar, listening to the indiscernible exchange, an unwanted outsider peeking through the window into a strange world. Then one of lake-maidens looked at him directly, and smiled, before speaking in a language that he could more easily understand. This was a very strange matter, she said, and they must go to the king of this land to resolve it on rightful grounds. "And you may come with us, if you want!" she laughed, answering Charon's query before it had been even asked.

And thus ended his journey, if only for the time being.

But another's had only just begun.


	2. So a Guy Wakes up in a Bar

_A/N: For revisiting readers who might be wondering, I have decided to finally split my issues after consistent feedback on the length of the uncut chapters. So what we are going with on this story (as with all my stories from now on forth) is that each issue will be divided into three Chapters (or Acts) and each of these chapters will be posted separately. This is meant purely for your reading pleasure and comfort. I would appreciate it very much if, upon finishing the three chapters of an issue, you consider them to be part of a singular product and see the connective tissue between them that brings out the thematic elements that I intended for my audience. The succeeding three chapters will be distinctly separate from the previous three chapters, while still furthering the plot and all other pertinent elements, and then the next three chapters will be different from these, and so on and so forth._

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><p><strong>Issue One: Stranger in A Strange Land<strong>

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><p><em>"A man may die, nations may rise and fall, but an idea lives on. Ideas have endurance without death."- JFK.<em>

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><p><strong><em>Chapter One: So A Guy Wakes Up In A Bar...<em>**

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><p><em>7 May 1945<em>

A jolt surged directly through his heart, followed by an unnatural liveliness which immediately revived his consciousness. White lights poured down on his eyes overhead, and they added to the overwhelming disorientation which had seized him since the moment of his resuscitation. He sprang up from the bed, his extremities feeling exceedingly numb as he did so.

He looked around; it was a cramped room, filled with people and all kinds of equipment sprawled around his bed. They were all men, dressed in white, sanitised robes; they regarded him with a unnerving mixture of pride and apprehension. He did not know who they were, or where he was. He had no sense of time; he had no sense of anything.

He felt as though a significant part of him had been lost somehow, somewhere.

As he looked around, he saw that his upper-left appendage was unnaturally short compared to its upper-right counterpart. Was it supposed to be that way? He touched it, and again felt that feeling of loss; but it was more visceral this time, more literal, for a wave of pain shot through his shoulder immediately. But the numbness was such that he could sense it only vaguely, as though it were a silhouette in a dream.

Two of the men approached him from either side, as he slowly stepped away from the bed. He realised that they were attempting to restrain him. His fight or flight reflexes kicked in; it was obvious which he would prefer.

He clocked the left one squarely in the jaw, and ducked away as the right one swung a baton at his gut. A knee to the chest, and this one was left reeling on the floor as well.

The others withdrew from him slightly; his gaze immediately shifted to the doorway, his path to it now more bereft of obstacles than before. Instinctively, he bolted straight for it.

The men around the room shouted, some at him, some at each other; it did not matter, for it was all gibberish to him at the moment. But he felt an uncomfortable tinge of vague, passing familiarity, as though he should recognise every syllable, every intonation- yet somehow, it all escaped him.

"Остановите его!"

"Назовите охранники!"

"Сделайте Кое-что! Карпов будет жевать нас к частям, если он убежит!"

He ignored them all; he had almost reached the door when he felt a strong force impact on the back of his skull, and he immediately went down, face-first.

They were still talking, but their voices were more muffled now; and more relaxed. He tried to rise up, but he felt them push him down towards the ground.

"Совершенство спасибо. Управляйте успокоительным средством немедленно. Даже в этом условии, он столь же силен как вол."

He felt a sharp sting in his arm; then they started to lift him and carry him away from the door. The image of the empty door-frame remained transfixed in his blurry eyesight, and he felt a terrible yearning for it, even as everything else faded away. Consciousness again started to slip away, like grains of sand through his fingers; and he wondered confusedly as the blackness returned once again.

Had it all been a dream?

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><p><em>Now<em>

James felt a gentle prodding in his shoulder. It awakened him from somnolence, and as he slowly opened his eyes, yawning loudly as he did so, it seemed to him as though he had been drugged, judging from the clumsiness he felt as he moved his arms away from his face.

Arms? He turned his attention immediately to his left shoulder, completely alert and in full possession of his faculties- and indeed, he saw, there was an arm, complete with hand, wrist and fingers, attached to it, looking entirely unscathed and quite ordinary. He touched it, and it felt normal: warm and light- not cold and heavy like the metal prosthetic.

What was happening to him?

"Well, I hope you had your beauty sleep."

James turned to see a man standing to his right, smiling as he cleaned a conical glass in his hand with a brown napkin. He had an earnest quality: shortly cropped brown hair framed atop a oval, rippled face with beady eyes. He was dressed rather formally: a plain white shirt and black, plaid trousers, complete with a maroon, striped tie. A modest build completed the picture; more than anything else, he seemed like a clerk from a bureaucratic office.

"And who you are supposed to be?" James asked, trying not to let his bewilderment show on the surface.

"Whoever you want me to be."

James hated the cryptic types.

"But if you want a name, I guess you can call me Steve."

"Steve...right."James hoped this wasn't somebody's idea of a sick joke.

He looked around; apparently he had been sleeping in a sitting position, atop a bar stool and leaning against a counter. He was also dressed in the costume, his cowl pulled off and hanging by the neck. It felt heavy- the blue metallic overshirt had always been a tad cumbersome- and he wondered why he had to arrive here dressed like this. But there were more important questions than that to be asked at the moment, he supposed.

Whoever had designed the room had either a bad taste or bankrupt imagination (or perhaps, both)- for it was all white, and it struck him- not in a dazzling, awe-inspiring manner, but in a dull, excitement-sapping manner. This was more grey than white; it did not seem to be the sum of all colors, but rather, the absence of all colors. (Though he knew this to be silly, as black is the true claimant of that latter title).

But something unnerved him, and he couldn't say what it exactly was. Every time he blinked, the details plopped into existence, layer by layer. Like those old simulations and video games, where the broad strokes appeared first and the rest was filled in microseconds later. Had the marble tiles been there before? And what about the tables? They were arranged perfectly in a pentagonal layout, the distinctly recognisable "RESERVED" signs set over them. The chairs remained empty, or so it seemed.

"So what is this place?" he asked, at length.

"Well, what does it look like?" Steve asked rhetorically, as he moved behind the counter and placed the spotless glass in its appropriate place on the shelf, lined with bottles and boxes of all familiar shapes and sizes.

"It looks like a bar," James answered. "Look, I am not in a mood to play around. I know what this is supposed to be."

"Do you?" Steve's gaze locked directly into James' eyes, and it had an air of sincerity this time around.

James sighed. He hated this sort of psychoanalysing horse manure. "What, are you supposed to be my shrink?...Never mind. How did I end up in this dump?"

"Well, that's a long story." Steve laughed. "Better have a drink to go with that one. What would you prefer?"

James shrugged, setting his arms down on the counter and leaning closer to it. "Ehh. Give me a beer."

"Right you are." Steve fetched out a bottle of Pabst, which he then slid towards James across the counter. "There you go."

"Thanks." James opened the bottle and downed a few mouthfuls. "Gaah. It's funny how it tastes exactly the same, y'see. And how this counter feels exactly like a finely polished piece of balsa wood should. You people usually go to such lengths to convince people that this is all real?"

"Well, not to get into the specifics of it, but reality is a very subjective thing, friend...reinforced here and there by a few overlapping objective constants. Geez, that already sounds convoluted, doesn't it? Here, this stuff came in with you."

Steve fetched out two objects from under the counter. They were James' trusty Swiss-army issue ballistic knife and custom-made Luger. He looked at them skeptically.

"Why would these arrive with me?" he asked, though he didn't expect much of an answer.

"Well, I can only guess. Maybe because you need them? Maybe because they are, in some ways, a part of you?"

"Uh-huh," James took it with a pinch of salt as he sheathed the knife and put the Luger in the holster. "And...there was no shield?"

"There was no shield," Steve repeated emphatically.

James didn't know what to make of that.

"So, you ready to talk?" Steve had that tentative aura of genuineness to him again.

"What would we talk about?" James attempted a grin, but it came off as a ludicrous cross between a snicker and a frown.

"About all kinds of things. I have a pretty broad mind, I would like you to know."

"Hmm. You want me to talk about my...death," James cast his gaze downward, focusing intensely on the greenish hue of the Pabst. Even in this surreal environment, it was a harsh truth to swallow.

"Well, that would be a good place to start," Steve offered.

"Yeah...I died twice, you know? I actually died after that plane blast. All they retrieved was my frozen corpse. I read it off their files; they used electroshock therapy and adrenaline in a half-baked attempt to create their own version of Super-Soldier Frankenstein, and somehow that brought me back. Hell of a luck, eh?" James gulped down a few more mouthfuls.

"Well, people have returned in more improbable ways. I can tell you that much." Steve chuckled to himself.

"Yeah...no revolving door for me this time around though, eh?" James asked half-heartedly.

"That isn't my place to say," Steve answered in an unusually grave tone.

"Not that I would ever want to go back, though. Maybe this is all I deserve. Whatever this is here...maybe this is right, for me. Right for everyone else, too."

"Now, that's a dangerously defeatist attitude," Steve said. "What this is here, is the start of a new, wonderful journey."

"What, are there going be rainbows and unicorns from here on out?" James laughed.

"If you want them to be there, sure," Steve replied cheekily.

"Steve...or whoever you are...you crack me up." James drowned the last dregs of the beer in one go. He burped mildly and got up from the seat.

"Look, all this moping...this ain't me. I need to take a walk. I am allowed to do that, right?"

"Of course you are. About the talk- don't worry about it. We have all the time in the world." Steve emphasised the last bits.

"Well, ain't that a pleasant thought..." James hoped the irony had gotten through. He turned around and headed for the big, ornate double-doored gate that stood at the edge of the humongous bar. "So if I walk in through that door, I can still come back here, right? No point of no return deal or anything like that?"

"Not at all."

"Well, I will be off, then." James felt a bit uneasy as he moved away from the bartender and his counter. "Aren't all your other customers a bit late, though?" He motioned at all the empty tables around him.

"Actually, they are all here. You are my last arrival, so far. You just-"

"Don't see them, right. See, I catch on fast, don't I? See you around, Steve." James waved him off and walked lazily towards the imposing gate. He took a deep breath, before grabbing both of the handles and pushing straight through.

A uniform barrage of white light overwhelmed his senses.

Then, it faded shortly after, replaced by a most curious sight.


	3. I Don't Want to Set The World on Fire

_**Chapter Two: I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire**_

* * *

><p>Extravagantly flashy lights. Maroon wall-papers that looked like they cost a great deal more than most Joe Publics' lifetime salaries. Huge, elaborately designed chandeliers hung from the roof at an interval of every dozen square feet or so. Classy lounge music was echoing through the built-in roof sound system.<p>

"Whoa!" James was truly bewildered.

An afterlife casino. Now he had seen it all.

If this was any indication of his stay here, then perhaps, he could get used to this.

All the usual excitements were to be found throughout the lot; baccarat, black jack, roulette, poker, slots- you name it. People were flocking to them like bees to honey.

He walked in, still taking in all the little details; the layout seemed to be an amalgamation of the most famous dens- Bellagio, MGM, Monte Carlo, The Mirage and so on- but there seemed to be a touch or two here and there that seemed entirely original, or may be from some backwater dig he hadn't heard of (which wasn't possible, because he had known them all in the course of his work over the years). Being occupied with such sightseeing, he didn't notice the man dressed in the black and white striped suit right in front of him, and accordingly, bumped right into his path.

"Sorry about that," James said without looking. When he did look up, he wished that he hadn't; the man's features were horribly disfigured.

For his own part, the man scoffed and walked around James, making an off-hand remark as he did so.

"Goddamned Supers. They walk around like they own the friggin' place..."

He wandered around the general vicinity for a while. It was all so convincing, but he could already sense that something wasn't quite right. For one, he had never seen a fedora-wearing dealer work a game in any casino before. Compared to the strangeness of the crowd- there were all kinds of men and women and monsters to be found around the premises- that was actually a bit tame, he supposed.

Finally, he noticed someone he recognised, near a roulette table. The sleek, form-fitting black bodysuit, complete with the distinctive golden torso design- and the bob cut- could only belong to one person. With relief, he approached the figure, who was surrounded by a host of other eager beavers participating in the game.

"Hey aren't you supposed to be-" he began, but she raised a hand and cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah. A little bit busy here!" she shouted out against the crowd.

"Alright, I'll wait," James said with a grin. They placed their bets, and the dealer- a middle-aged man with reasonable looks (though James objected to the half-formed goatee)- accepted them with the usual aplomb and set the wheel in motion. After several nail-biting seconds, it came to a stop; several men and women erupted in deafening cheers of triumph.

Janet Van Dyne was not amongst them.

"What the hell, Chris?' she charged at the nonplussed dealer. "You told me my number was coming up this time!"

"Sorry about that." Chris raised his hands in apology. "You know how things are in the House. Last minutes changes to the Plan and what-not."

"Harumph! You better make good on that promise, little man. I had to bust my peachy behind working those favors for you, you know..." she turned around and walked off. She spotted James soon afterwards and smiled mischievously when she noticed the costume.

"You are the one who called me, right?" she asked, dainty hands on flaring hips. She had the face (and attitude) of a movie star; with her social profile, James wondered why she hadn't ventured off into Hollywood in her lifetime. An opportunity sorely missed, he lamented.

"Yup, guilty as charged. Wanna get a drink?" he asked, motioning towards the nearby lounge.

"Know how to treat a girl alright, eh? Right, then. Lead the way, soldier."

* * *

><p>"So...Bucky. Gosh, I feel like I am calling my grandpa by his first name," Janet giggled to herself. She was sipping steadily on a glass of mimosa.<p>

"God, you know how to make a guy feel old." James loved to fool around with the pretty ones. "But everyone calls me Bucky- I'm fine with that, really. You can also call me Jim, if you want."

"You don't look like a Jim," Janet noted.

"Lady, I am not all surface...you know, what the folks say about judging a book by its cover. I have got layers, like...onions," he finished sheepishly. Lord, that was really sappy.

"You stole that from Shrek!" Janet broke off into a brief laugh riot.

"Yeah..." James chuckled a bit at his own expense, "Nat made me watch all types of movies. It's amazing how that girl does so many of these...normal things along with the usual stuff that we people do."

"That's how we cope with all the craziness," Janet explained. "Or at least, us girls do. We fight it with the power of trivia and distraction. Sue, me and Carol used to arrange these pedicure sessions every once in a while, and we would call in all the others we could find, and then…"

James put up his hands in mock resignation and buried his face in his arms.

"I give, I give. No more girl talk…"

"Alright, then." Janet sipped a bit more of Mimosa; a thoughtful look reigned on her elegant features. "So you were at the bar, right?"

"Yeah." James was relieved to know that it wasn't just him. "So the guy's name is really Steve?"

"Nah. When it was me in there, he introduced himself as Hank," Janet reminisced, an undercurrent of distaste evident in her contralto.

"That cheeky bastard," James muttered darkly. "Anyways, what is he supposed to be, really?"

"He's what they call a psychopomp." Janet paused a little, savoring James' confused expression before explaining further. "Literally, that means a soul conductor. They serve as guides for souls new to the afterlife. Near about every culture has one- or several- of those. The Greeks have Charon, the Norse have the Valkyrie; in Christianity, there is the Grim Reaper, or as Muslims call him, Azrael."

"So why did I end up with this 'Steve' instead of that other cheerful fellow?"

"Oh, Jim…Americanism is a legitimate culture; the KFCs and McDonalds in third world countries can attest to that."

"But for Pete's sake, why a bartender?" James rolled his eyes in irritation.

"Well, most red-blooded Americans tend to be very comfortable around bartenders…they divulge all sort of dirty secrets, pour out their hearts and souls in one drunken haze or the other."

"Right...how come you know so much about this stuff?" James was genuinely curious.

"A girl has to know these kinds of things if she wants to get around this sort of place, Jim." She smiled, a far-away look present in her eyes, as though she was thinking of a million things in that moment. "Gambling for a chance at rebirth is a messy business. Maybe you have already noticed this, but the House always wins."

"Hasn't it always been that way?" James wondered, more to himself than anything else.

"I suppose so. Say, do you want to try your hand at this? I can give you a few pointers for the first few games," she offered.

"Ehh…I am not so sure. I have taken plenty of gambles in my lifetime, more than enough, I think. I really don't see the point right now, I suppose."

"Well, that can't be entirely truthful; otherwise, the door wouldn't have led you here. Come on, it will be a bit of harmless fun, okay? Matt, I think, is hosting the highest stakes poker game for this week. Let's go see him, why don't we?"

"Oh well, if you insist," James gave in. Janet seemed pleased; she didn't even have to make those doe eyes she was known for in the modeling world. The woman certainly knew her way around this place, James reckoned inwardly.

"Yes?" Matt asked, not looking up from his table. He was currently busy shifting through the aftermath of the last game, reshuffling the decks in proper order as the winners left with the spoils of war. He was young, easily younger than most of the staff; his spiky hair was gelled in, and he wore large, wooden framed spectacles that looked a tad too old-fashioned on his otherwise ultra-modern image.

"Hey Matt, it's me." Janet poked him gently again. "Look, I have got a friend who's interested in the next game, see? He's new. Why don't you show him around the bends for a bit?"

"I am busy, Janet. Seriously, very, very busy. Some other time?" He had still not bothered to look up at his visitors.

"Oh, come on! You know I put a good word or two in for you when you were still green and trying to climb up the ladder!" Janet shot a glare towards the errant dealer; but she took enough care to control the gesture such that it was more of a friendly plea than a hostile warning.

"They run a much tighter ship at the top level, hun. Can't walk two paces without having Joe or Axel's go about it," he commented morosely.

James shrugged; clearly this man had other things on his mind. "Let's leave the poor sap alone, eh? I think my hand at poker's pretty good as it is..." Jan frowned at the attempt; obviously she had put her foot down and was not in a mood to budge one inch.

"Listen to the voice of reason, eh dear?" Matt smiled sardonically, finally bothering to look up towards the two. "Look, I...ah. Well. So, this is your friend, right?" Matt had suddenly become unsually peevish.

"One and the same," Janet replied; Matt's sudden change of pace hadn't gone past her gaze. She knew something was up.

James thought the same.

"Hmm. You know what? I have a bit of a break right now that we could take advantage of...five minutes? Yeah. Alright then, man, why don't you come with me? To the back, we will have a little chat."

"Right...Jan, you aren't coming?" though James knew the answer; he could gauge it off her guarded expressions, not to mention how Matt had suppressed an urge to frown at the suggestion.

"Nah. I don't think I am wanted in there...you go and learn the tricks in there, Jim. Just don't forget who got you in," she smiled, half-seductively, half-casually. In that brief moment, she seemed like a curious cross between The Ice Queen and America's Sweetheart.

"Like I could forget a dame like you. Take care, Jan," James waved her off, already walking with Matt towards their destination.

"I always do," she replied, a glassy look in her hazel eyes.

* * *

><p>The 'back' was exactly what James had expected it to be. A single table and two chairs on either end; singular bulb hanging above head, double-glazed glasses on either side. This was the interrogation room- where they took all the card counters and other sorts of cheaters for a good talking down.<p>

Matt was pacing the room, hand absent-mindedly stroking the stubble on his chin while he waited for the intercom to connect to the other end.

"Yeah...Ed? Come in over to the back, would you? There's been a...development. It's better if you see it for yourself."

"_Right. Wait a minute," _a voice poured through the intercomm, and then the line broke off.

"Matt..." James began, fingers tapping the partex while his eyes were focused steadily on the dealer, "I don't think this has anything to do about poker."

"Yeah," Matt laughed nervously as he took a seat. "You were always smart like that, weren't you? Bullheaded, but smart. Relax...the guy who handles your sphere of influence will be here shortly. He will explain it better than I would."

James nodded, his eyes wandering around the corners of the cramped room. He had already figured out seven different ways to get out of there if they intended to detain him and push came to shove. But somehow, he figured that wasn't going to be the case.

After a few tentative seconds, the door swung open and a similarly dressed staff member stepped through. He recognised this dealer; it was the one with the fedora. The man's gaze fixed immediately on James, and his mouth fell slightly agape and his eyes vacillated; he soon recovered his composure and straightened his rimless glasses, focusing his newly found fury straight towards Matt.

"Jesus, Matt. I can't believe you screwed up the first major gig they handed you," he said, his features relaxed and his posture more or less casual, but his tone bore the full brunt of his venom- it was so accusatory that Matt couldn't help but wince in reaction.

"Hey, easy there! This snafu did NOT come from my end. You think Brian had something to do with this...?"

"It wouldn't be the first time he jumped before looking, certainly," Ed took the seat beside Matt. He was in damage control mode, "But my gut tells me he has nothing to do with this."

"Then who else? Not many get to play with our particular sandbox, as it were."

"Hmm..." Ed took off his fedora, lost in thought, and ran a hand over his head, pausing intermittently to scratch his shortly cropped hair.

"You know, guys, you are free to explain yourselves to me, anytime you like," James said, with a shit-eating grin plastered on his face.

"Quiet! Don't you see he is thinking..." Matt scoffed in a faux-whisper.

"Matt...I think I know what this is," Ed said, donning the fedora once again. "It sort of makes sense...Jesus. You go arrange a meeting with the usual suspects, right? Let me wrap up things on this end."

"Wait...is this what I think it is?" Matt asked, apprehension apparent in his hesitant tone.

"Yeah. Code 34," Ed confirmed.

"Christ. Well, I will get going, then." He hastily rose from the chair and broke off into a stride. He paused before walking out the door, turning towards his colleague one last time as he did so. "Good luck on sorting him out."

The door closed with a large THUD. Ed now stared intently at James for a few moments before speaking.

"Look. You aren't supposed to be here, alright? Something's happening around here that isn't...right. You don't want to get caught in the crossfire, trust me. Get out of here, as quick as you can."

"Just like that?" James was understandably puzzled.

"Yup. Just like that. Listen, there are things at work here that you can't possibly understand. What you are here, is an anomaly. Or maybe...more of a symptom, of something terrible, far worse than you can imagine."

"Right...whatever's coming, is there a way to fight it? You know what the wise guys say- if there's a will, there's a way."

"Hah. You are a headstrong guy, ain't ya?" Ed shook his head, a most serious expression reigning on his features as he continued on. "What I am talking about...you can't fight it. You can't delay it. It will consume you. But it's not the right time...so you have to run, alright? You talk to anyone here for long?"

"Yeah, Janet Van Dyne. Why?"

"Good lord. She's the worst of the lot. You stay clear of her. There are all kinds of people who would love to get their hands on the sort of advantages you possess in your current situation. Avoid any sort of contact in the casino- just run straight for the door."

"You mean the bar?"

"Yeah. The guy in there will take care of you. You will be safe in there...for a while longer than here, at least."

"Say...why are you so concerned about my safety? What does it mean to you?"

"Let's just say, I have a vested interest in your survival. Now what are you waiting for?" Ed suddenly rose from the chair, walked over to the door and opened it. "Get going!"

* * *

><p>There was a new song playing over the speakers, now. James paused, if only briefly, to savor it. It was his kind of song. It brought back a lot of memories- good, bad and a lot of things in-between.<p>

He walked around, blending into the right crowds at the right moment as he slowly headed for the door. On the way, he picked up a black leather jacket with a hoodie- perfect for hiding his neon-sign of a costume.

The people were still busy doing the usual hustle and bustle; did they have any idea about what was coming to them, he wondered. Heck, he didn't know why he was jumping through these hoops in the first place- all he had were the cryptic words of a mysterious fedora-wearing casino dealer. But he had done operations with stranger sources of intel, he supposed.

He spotted Janet about halfway through; she was alert, as if on the lookout for someone. He deftly steered away as far away from her as he could. Soon, he spotted several others sifting through the crowds in similar manners- he recognised Swordsman, Doctor Druid, and Brother Voodoo from the Avengers files. So they were intent on ganging up on him, eh? Not if he had any say about it.

The door was now in his visual range. The problem, though, was that there was a tall, green, alien-looking warrior, dressed in a purple costume with a skull insignia belt, guarding it. Coolly, he reached for his Luger as he drew ever nearer to his destination. Besides the magic hammers and repulsor gloves and other similarly fascinating gizmos, his handgun might not look like much; but then again, David's sling was not very inconspicuous either. The gun packed one hell of a punch.

A few lovetaps to the liver should do it.

He braced himself for the move; but then he saw him at the corner of his eyes- scraggy brown hair down to the shoulders, long leather trenchcoat, imploring eyes staring straight through him. Jack Monroe.

James stopped dead in this tracks.

Jack knew.

He knew that Jim had gunned him down and dumped his corpse in the middle of nowhere in the trunk of a '76 Camaro. He hadn't seen his wife and daughter in the last three years. He would never see them again.

James was transfixed; he half-expected Jack to attack any second. But he didn't. He just stood in the distance and stared, dead on in the eyes of his killer. And somehow, that was a thousand times worse.

Suddenly, James felt as though his skull had exploded, and he went down on the floor from the tremendous impact. He looked up to see a large purple-gloved fist swing towards his face, and he ducked out of the way, quickly bringing out his Luger to take out his assailant as quickly as possible.

He never got the chance to squeeze the trigger.

The ground started to shake violently. The green warrior was thrown off balance, and James took his chance, elbowing the alien in the chest, and followed it up with a right hook that sent him reeling on the floor. He kicked him in the back to ensure that he stayed down for a while longer.

He looked around quickly as he moved towards the door; the others had grown alerted to his presence and were trying to hurry to his position, but current developments were proving quite the obstacles in their paths. There were cracks starting to appear on the roof; a chandelier fell down straight onto the heads of several bystanders. Panic and chaos were at an all-time high.

James could see the dealers and the minor staff expertly navigating through the ensuing confusion to nearby exits, paying no attention to the pleas of hangers on, scrambling to stay on foot atop the rapidly cracking ground. Random bursts of infighting between the patrons were broken up by tremors and the subsequent falling debris.

If Ed's words were any indication, this was probably just the trailer. And James wasn't going to wait around until the movie started right then and there.

He grabbed the door handles and swung, shielding his eyes from the blinding whiteness as he walked into it and snapped the doors shut.


	4. M Stands for Magic

_**Chapter Three: M stands for Magic**_

* * *

><p>"Back already?" Steve was cleaning his glasses again- maybe he had nothing better to do in this place, James reckoned, as he approached the bar with due haste.<p>

"There was a disturbance. Long story...you know anything about a guy named Ed?"

Steve's eyes lit up at the name.

"Yes. What about him?" The bartender had put down the glasses, his full attention now focused entirely on James.

"He said that something bad was happening. Really bad...he mentioned a Code 34."

Steve placed a hand on his temple, creasing it uneasily as he spoke quietly, his usually firm voice noticeably unsteady as he did so. "Figured it would come to this sooner or later. It's that time of the year again...Look, we need to get you out of here. Follow me."

Steve broke into a sprint, running to the northwest corner of the room, and James started running after him. His eyes fell towards the myriads of tables, the "RESERVED" signs still sitting over them.

"Hey, what about your other customers...?" James asked with sudden concern.

"They left."

"Are you sure? I don't know if..."

"Yes, I am sure! You need to worry about yourself, young man!" Steve yelled at James. They had reached the corner; Steve pressed something invisible on the left wall, and soon a secret door popped open, revealing an elevator made out of some entirely transparent material. He quickly pressed the buttons by its side and instantly the door slid open.

"Get in, quickly...what are you waiting for?" Steve was sweating bullets- both figuratively and metaphorically. James meanwhile, had spotted something peculiar happening at the dome-shaped roof.

"You see that?" he pointed at the dome, which was splitting apart at its tip, slowly but surely, bending like it was made out of cardboard. Something peeked at the opening; James thought that those sinister, yellow balls to be eyes but he couldn't entirely sure either way. "It's already begun here, hasn't it?"

"Looks that way. Now do you want it to come and get you? Quick, if you want to live!"

"That sounds like an oxymoron..." James felt like he had to quip such silly things in the face of madness. Maybe he had picked it up being in such close proximity to Spider-man these days.

The doors snapped shut as soon as they had stepped in. It moved down at a serene pace, and that allowed James to experience unfolding chaos down to every last minute detail. He could spot the casino- if it could be called that anymore; it had become detached from the 'bar', and all four corners of it was collapsing in onto a two-dimensional plane, like a hollow bag of polythene being squeezed into a sheet. Everything was starting to become a sheet, in fact. Multi-colored, dazzling-looking, terrible-sounding sheets. The material of the elevators seemed to block out most of the noise- but what little got through put his brain (if that's what it really was) through the mother of all migranes.

"Holy...just what the hell is happening out there, Steve?" James said, massaging the sides of his temple furiously as he did so.

"Well...your consciousness is shaping the sensory output that you are getting, trying to use science to make some sense of what's happening around here. You are seeing two-dimensional planes floating around in vacuum, right?"

James nodded.

"Well, a major development in 20th Century Earth Physics is the development of string theories, also known as M-Theory. I am figuring you know something about it, or else you wouldn't seeing it here."

"I may have read about it recently, yes..." James wasn't entirely sure. Memories were starting to get very jumbled up at the moment.

"Hmm. Different 'membrane' universes- each with varying laws of physics- that float around in hyperspace, occasionally influencing another, causing a variety of effects, one of which might be the origin of gravity itself. Heh...you humans can dream up some crazy stuff. You know, over time, what the M in M-theory means has become very vague and undefined. You people can't even decide on the name...let alone one single unifying theory for all the stuff!"

"Maybe the M stands for Magic," James offered. To be truthful, he was a bit unnerved by how condescending Steve had become in the last few minutes.

"Hmm. Food for one's thought, isn't it...?" Steve pressed a button, and suddenly the elevator stopped. "We are here."

"But it's the middle of nowhere." James did not like where this was going.

"Exactly." Steve had a dark gleam in his beady eyes. He balled up his fists and suddenly swung for James' jaw. James saw the suckerpunch coming a mile away- but for some reason he couldn't move one bit. The attack connected and James went down, a stream of blood spurting from his mouth. He tried to roll away immediately and attempt a counterattack, but he couldn't move one finger. Steve fished out the Luger from James' holster, clicked back the safety, and aimed it straight for his skull.

"I am sorry..."

James prepared for the worst. What happened when a guy died in the afterlife, he wondered.

Steve, however, was not so steadfast in carrying out this betrayal; he wavered, his face contorting, providing glimpses of the confliction emotions raging inside him. Eventually, he gave in, and lowered the handgun, his other hand covering his eyes- and also, perhaps, his shame.

"Goddamn it. The things they make me do for this job..."

James realised that he could move again. He sprang to his feet immediately and prepared to lunge at Steve, but he was so utterly defeated that it seemed pointless. Steve was averting his gaze, and handed the Luger back to James.

"All I ever wanted was to help people..."

"Steve...just what the hell was that back there?!" James tried as much as possible to temper his rage and fury.

"They wanted me to put you under. It removes any unforeseen complications from your unexpected arrival here. That Code 34 was the key."

Never trust a fedora-wearing casino dealer, James reckoned.

"That son of a...he set me up!"

"It's not his fault...you just aren't meant to be here. But if I left you here like that though, it really would have been the death of you. In a permanent sense."

Steve pushed a couple of buttons and the elevator started moving again, but this time it didn't only move downwards- it moved sideways, in diagonals, zig-zagging- you name it. It was highly dizzying, to say the least.

"What do you mean, permanently? Like I would be wiped out of existence...?"

"Well, not really. There would be a you running around top-side soon enough, I wager, all fine and dandy. He would be just like you in all the right aspects; but you won't be him. What you are now would just be...dead. Forgotten."

"...Simplify, Steve," this mumbo jumbo crap was doing a real number to his mind.

"Well, I suppose I can try," Steve sighed deeply, before starting. "What do you think are the building blocks of the universe?"

"Atoms, molecules...sub-atomic particles and the rest of those things. Science has been never my strong point." James had always been interested in other things- like dames, for one- even before the war.

"Right. But what makes hydrogen nuclei to fuse in such a way to turn to heavier, helium nuclei?How would you define the precise nature of the wave-particle duality which manifests in so many different ways throughout the universe? For that matter, what exactly determines that water boils around 100 degrees celsius?"

James shrugged. Steve pursed his lips before resuming once again.

"It's information. Information is the underlying infrastructure of the universe. For stuff that requires only one possible outcome, there's a binary system- true or false. With more broader, imprecise matters, you have a range, say, x is between y and z. Ideas are the true underpinnings of our reality. Energy and matter just stand on the shoulders of these giants," Steve finished emphatically.

"Alright...I will play along. So what does that have to do with whatever's happening around us?"

"What is happening here, is that objective truths are breaking down. Reality is starting to lose its non-locality. Everything is about to go through a major shift. Subjective truths will be taking hold soon...and eventually, the lines will be blurred completely. Everything will be true/false. The range of y will be between positive and negative infinity. Like a big, apocalyptic petri-dish of gibberish. This has happened many times before, actually."

"What...? Then how come no one picked up on it before? On Earth, or space or whatever...?" James was finding this very hard to believe.

"A lot of people did. None of them remember it. Think of this like a giant reset button. Like that movie you humans have..._The Matrix?_ It's a vicious cycle, really."

"This is a very...fascinating discussion, no doubt," James attempted to steer the conversation towards his intended target, "But I still don't see how I am really affected by all this."

"...What do you think you are? In here, I mean?"

"Dead?" there was that shit-eating grin on his face again.

"Yeah, there's that. But look, there's a reason you arrived here in the star-spangled banner. You are more of an idea, a concept, than you are a man. A theory, a paradigm, a symbol," Steve was almost reverential.

"Gee, thanks...you flatter me..."

"There are certain ideas that people keep coming back to. Like say, democracy, freedom, happiness prosperity and all that...but they constantly change it, twist it and shape it to according to their own perceptions. They are constantly adding in stuff and throwing some bits out. They are effectively dismantling the original ideas, building new, distant facsimiles in its place.

If you get caught up in this, Jim...what you are will cease to exist. Maybe something will come out of that, maybe it won't. Regardless, your idea will die. You want to fade into oblivion?"

"Well, if you put it like that..." James laughed. He was undergoing weirdness overload. But somehow, it all made sense. And the small part of him that understood it all wanted to curl up in a corner and die. "How am I going to get out of this, then?"

"Let me look..." Steve stuck his hands into his trouser pockets and seemed to rummage around them for a few moments. "Ahh. I might have some things for you."

He brought out a small, rolled up parchment from his left pocket, and a strange, double-edged ceramic dagger from the right one. The blades were shaped like that of an axe.

Steve handed the roll of parchment to James, who opened it up. It seemed like a map, with a large ink dot showing its current position. He noticed that the areas closest to the dot were presented in the greatest details, and the boundaries grew increasingly more vague until they faded out abruptly. A large compass was drawn on the upper-right corner, and the pointer wasn't pointing North, and more surprisingly, was vibrating to and fro constantly.

"I think this is pretty self-explanatory. But where would this lead me to...?"

"I don't know..." Steve seemed lost in thought. "There is a legend, a bit of an old wives tale, really...that some of the discarded, forgotten ideas managed to shelter themselves from one of the worldstorms and built themselves a refuge...a sort of paradise for lost ideas, really. Something like limbo, you could say."

"That sounds awfully hokey, Steve."

"It might be your only hope. Take this, too," he handed the ceramic dagger over to Jim.

"This looks nice...but I don't really see the use. I got a better one already, actually," he pointed to his ballistic knife.

"That looks like a talisman...it should help to delay the breaking down of non-locality in your surrounding reality, giving you the time to escape...oh. It also acts like a beacon, it seems, to other souls in similar plights. That's good; you will need help if you want to get through this."

"Well...I will take your word for it," James stored both items in the pouches around his belt. Soon afterwards, the elevator stopped.

"You aren't going to start beating me up again, are you?" James wasn't entirely sure at this point.

"Hah. No. Look ahead. Don't you recognise that?" Steve offered to the now open doors. A large, multi-hued construct loomed below him; ever thinning strands twisted here and there as they stood apart from the main body, with large spherical globules of light hanging at their tips. He recognised the object after a few moments of rumination.

"Hey...that's the Asgardian tree, isn't it? The World Ash?"

"Yeah. Yggdrasil. That's your stop right here. I can't accompany you any further." Steve seemed curiously sad.

"Alright..." James walked over to the edge of the door, gripping the sides tightly. "Why are you helping me, Steve? What are you gaining out of this?"

"Nothing, actually. I am one of those spirits who can't place his own needs and the greater good above any one else, and maybe I am the fool for it," Steve laughed softly.

"You are an alright guy in my book." James slapped the man on the shoulder, "See you around, Steve."

"Yeah. Maybe you will. Now go!"

James nodded one last time before flunging himself off the elevator, diving straight for the middle of the multi-coloured tree. As he grew nearer and nearer, some of the branches reacted to his presence and approached him, gently wrapping around his body steadily. They guided him down the correct path, and soon his vision was entirely blinded by the extravagant vistas swimming in front of him.

James knew he was in way over his head.

He half-hoped that all of this was just a dream. But he knew that he couldn't dream up anything as strange and weird as the stuff he had gone through over the past few hours.

He wondered about the stuff Steve had said to him. He was an idea? What did he actually represent? He never had been the straight and narrow type like...the other Steve, or believed in anything as much as he had. Then there was all that other stuff that he had done. In the end, was he even a _good _idea?

He couldn't let that sort of negative thinking cloud his purpose. He pushed it to the back of his mind and focused on his goal. There were a million questions swimming around his head...but one stuck out like a sore thumb above all the rest.

Where do ideas go when they die?

It looked like he was about to find out.


	5. The Dead and the Cold

_**Issue Two: Like Moths to a Flame**_

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><p><em><strong>Chapter Zero: The Last King of Asgard<strong>_

* * *

><p>Balder jumped from his horse, his legs bent as he landed squarely on the desiccated ground. He drew his sword with tremendous force, and the resulting friction produced the first few notes of a shrill and violent song. The Asgardian advanced towards his remaining foe with perfect poise.<p>

Although cornered, the monster was still overly aggressive. It roared as it lunged towards him, jaws wide and teeth bared. It burned with a terrible, unnatural hunger. In the form of its enemy, garbed in ringmail forged by the finest of dwarven smiths, it saw easy prey.

Balder, however, was anything but. He met the beast with equal vigor, shouting forth a great cry as he swung his claymore vertically in an arc. His aim, honed by millennia of experience, was true; the edge caught the beast mid-lunge, right in the gut, and dug into it, easily piercing past the vulnerable innards. The creature fell to the ground with a thud, the last of its brethren to do so.

For now, the demons had been vanquished. Surtur wouldn't feast on his kin today, and that would have to be victory enough for Balder.

Balder watched the felled creature as it tried to breathe. Tried not to die. And he felt pity, for he sensed something in it that seemed to be, if not good, then certainly not evil. What this poor thing must have been before, he wondered, its form and shape had twisted by Limbo beyond all recognition. Such profane knowledge was lost to the ravages of time.

Balder watched, as the fire in those lava-red eyes burned through its last few embers. And as he watched, he spoke to the creature. He told it that he was sorry. That it was okay to die. That it had died for a good cause, so there was nothing to fear in oblivion.

The beast could not know his words, but something in those red eyes stirred, as it breathed its last. In that final gesture, the Last King of Asgard saw that it had understood.

Balder the Brave was the Last King of Asgard. After he had perished in that final, foolish charge against the World Eaters, Odin All-Father had resumed leadership. And Odin, son of Bor, son of Buri, was not a king, but a dictator, a tyrant, a despot, if at times a benevolent one.

And thus Balder was the Last King. He found it fitting that this dubious honor should fall upon him. It illustrated his failures rather succinctly. Rarely did any Last King of any kingdom perform admirably in his duties, and Balder was no exception.

He had been indecisive. Doubtful. Gullible. He had despaired when he should have rallied. He had faltered when he should have charged.

And thus he bore his shame, as he was wont to do. He wore it, even now, like a badge, and wielded it, turning his one weakness into his strength. Redemption was scarce to come by in Limbo, but he had an eternity to wait for it.

Presently, his six kinsmen joined him on their horses, their own battles won. They were dead folk like he, given to his command under the auspices of fell Hela. The battles were over for the day; they had a few hours to rest and regain their strength and vigor. They rode on, with Balder at their helm, towards their camp. There they would sit, ever vigilant; to sleep would be to allow their eventual enemies undue advantage. And they would sit silently, except for every sixth day, for they had agreed earlier on that tall tales and merry ballads were best conserved in their usage, least they become trite and unbearable with excess.

And thus they rode north. They would have ridden from dusk till dawn, if Balder hadn't spotted a most curious phenomenon. For he had seen a tree in the horizon, and that was a most unusual thing to see. Limbo was a featureless expanse. It had no need for trees, forests, rivers and mountains. It was fine by itself.

Balder consulted with his brothers in arms about the matter. It seemed that only he could see this strange tree. This intrigued Balder even more. He ordered his followers to change direction, for he wished to investigate this anomaly.

Now they rode southwest, for what seemed like hours at end. The tree edged closer and closer, and Balder precluded the possibility of it being a mirage. Thus he rode on all the harder. His kinsmen were hard pressed to match his enthusiasm. They were not entirely thrilled at being bid to chase spectres, but they were duty-bound to do as their liege had asked.

The hours grew. The day would have turned into night, but there were no such distinctions in Limbo. Eventually, the oldest and most experienced of his kinsmen protested that they must return to camp, for the time available for rest was growing shorter and shorter. Balder understood his reasoning, but curiosity had been lit afire in his heart. The burning was too bright to ignore. He sent the toughest and most capable men back to camp, and kept only two arms bearers in his company.

The three Norsemen rode on for a bit more. After a while, the tree was close enough for Balder to make out distinct spheres floating from its branches. That removed any further doubts from his mind.

The tree was the World Ash: Yggdrasil in the Old Tongue. He knew now why he saw it: it was a summons, and it was meant for him alone. He told his men as such and bade them goodbye, and they left him, with heavy hearts. The Fates were not kind when they called on dead gods.

Now Balder rode on, alone. Dark thoughts circled inside his head. The World Ash was a canny thing; it helped those it fancied, and cursed those it loathed. Such preferences came rather arbitrarily, and weren't easily discerned by its playthings. And why, indeed, did it choose Balder, when he was a piece long discarded from the chessboard? The possibilities were limitless, each more frightening than the last.

Balder steeled himself against such circular introspection. The Fates had chosen him, and there was nothing he could do about it. Better to ride on and meet his destiny, than to fret and whine about it like a petulant child.

He rode on and on. Eventually, the journey proved too exhausting for his loyal mount: it neighed in despair and collapsed to the ground. Balder dismounted and patted the beast on its back and stroked its luxurious, black mane. He kissed it on the head and bade it to sleep, and the beast obeyed, finding relief in the embrace of slumber. The last leg of this journey had to be covered on foot.

He smiled at this particular turn of fortune. This journey was meant for him and him alone. So be it.

He walked and walked. Thankfully, he did not have to walk much longer. It came to pass that he reached the World Ash at last.

It loomed over him, giant and ominous. It was pulsating with an unknown, limitless energy. Balder knelt in front of it on one knee and closed his eyes. He prayed in the Old Tongue: a solemn murmuring of taut intonations. Apprehension, temporarily banished, now returned, and reigned supreme in his heart.

Odin had hung from the World Ash for nine days and nine nights and gouged his right eye. Only then had he been granted supreme knowledge, so that he might rule over the Nine Worlds. What would it ask of him, Balder wondered. Whatever it was, he expected nothing in return. The price would be too steep.

He rose to his feet and touched the trunk of the World Ash. The bark, once thick and sturdy, became malleable, as though dissolving into some sort of ooze. Balder's fingers sunk into it, and when he tried to withdraw them, he found that he could not. An inexorable pull from within the tree worked on his body, and it tugged at him with great force. His wrist disappeared, followed by his hand, shoulder, head and torso, and then the World Ash swallowed him whole.

And with that, the Last King of Asgard was in Limbo no more.

* * *

><p><em><strong>Chapter One: The Dead and The Cold<strong>_

* * *

><p>They lay there, naked on the hard floor. They were coiled around each other, and their shared bodily warmth protected them from the cold. James' head lay resting, upon her breast, and he could hear the faint murmur of her heartbeat. It always remained calm whenever he could hear it. That was who she was: steel-willed, yet lovely and graceful as the morning flower. A deadly contradiction that had claimed the lives of many, and may yet claim his before all was said and done.<p>

Her hands grasped his head, and lifted him slightly, so that she could face him with her eyes. Her straight, blood-red locks framed her pale face perfectly; she appeared frozen in time, a snapshot of eternal beauty. Yet, in that singular moment, the wisdom of her years became visible. It revealed countless scars: scars of wars, of betrayals, of loves lost and gained. She stared deep into his eyes, and her face became burdened with concern.

"It will be alright," she said to him, an understanding smile upon her ruby lips. "Don't be afraid."

"Nat, I..." he began, but he could not finish.

He gasped, for he felt the air knocked out him all at once. Before he could make sense of anything, a terrible force yanked him away from her. He zoomed away at an unfathomable speed, accelerating to even greater levels. Everything started collapsing in on itself, like the folded edges of a paper sheet being flattened into a single plane.

James' eyes shot open. He was awake, and he was falling.

He screamed, flailing his arms around and turning his head in all directions. Then he realised what a foolish gesture it was: there was nothing in the sky for him to gawk at. There was only him, ripping through the air like a stone, and the innumerable pellets of snow hitting him squarely in the chest. And soon there wouldn't be him, but rather pieces of him left, judging by the height of the fall.

He calmed himself, as much as he could. The last thing he could remember was the tree. What did Steve call it? Yggdrasil: the World Ash. It had wrapped itself around him, and was carrying him through to some unknown destination. Its embrace had been so reassuring, as though it knew everything that needed to be done. James had let go, and for that endless moment which stretched on and on, all his fears and doubts had evaporated into nothingness.

But now that moment had passed, and the tree was gone. But his ride was just beginning, and nobody had informed him about the level of turbulence he was experiencing at the moment.

Having died once already, he didn't want to find out what would happen the next time. He curled himself into a fetal position and put his hands above his head, and waited.

The impact hit him like a sledgehammer, and his insides recoiled violently. He rolled three times along the ground, before coming to rest.

He opened his eyes. Snow was everywhere. Still, a fall of such altitude would have been fatal enough even if he had fallen into the softest river. It took a great deal more to kill dead men than live ones, he realised with a painful grimace.

He got up, nursing his aching limbs to life as he did so. The pain was already fading, as though some magical catalyst had spurred on the healing process. He looked down at his torso, which had become grotesque; three ribs poked out of his flesh, muscle and sinew still sticking to the bones in clustered formations. Bile rose to his throat, and he felt a strong urge to vomit; this was quite remarkable, for he couldn't remember the last time he had eaten. Perhaps, he drank something in that bar?

James ignored the grossness of the situation and touched these protrusions, gingerly, and then pressed them back into his chest. The wounds in his chest began to close, with only the holes in his gleaming blue chest-piece left behind as a reminder. The lurching feeling in his belly returned. He brushed it off and straightened his right arm, which had been dislocated from the shoulder, and pushed violently. A crunching sound followed, and the sharp resurge in pain was enough to push him down to his knees. He rose back up again, clearing his mind of all the unpleasantness.

There was nothing to see for miles and miles. It wasn't because of the snow, for it fell gently and sparsely at the moment. That was something he would want to worry about later; if he knew anything about frozen wastelands, the weather was only about to get worse. No, it was the mist, an unnatural, persisting fog that obscured his vision beyond a few dozen feet.

James fetched the map from one of his pouches, and unrolled it. There was the large ink dot, namely him, in a large, level clearing mostly devoid of any landmarks. There were ridged formations a little farther to the northwest. Glaciers, he presumed. There was a gathering of trees a little further beyond to the east: this must be a forest. The ink became increasingly hazy after that, and the last thing that was visible before it faded completely was a mountain range to the north, curved in their alignment like a bow. The mountain in the middle loomed larger over the others. In the right corner, the compass had stopped spinning, and the arrow now pointed unwaveringly north.

The mountains it was, then.

James hoped that they were the worst obstacles he would face in this land. This place might have seemed relatively calm- ordinary, even. But the memory of the sudden turmoil that had gripped the Bar and the Casino still burned bright in his mind, and he wasn't about to let this false sense of security lull him into complacency.

With hardened resolve, James struck out towards north. The mist proved to be a frustrating barrier, but the real foe was the cold. For now, it was deceptively hospitable: the wind that now flowed to the south wasn't really a wind, but rather a strong breeze. The snow rose up to a little above James' ankles. It wouldn't rise higher until he reached the shadow of the mountains, he reckoned.

The cold, however, was a capricious foe; it was gauging him, observing him for his strengths and weaknesses, and when it would choose to strike, it would sneak up on him quieter than the stealthiest thief. James had seen it often enough; he had seen it happen to his friends, his enemies and even to himself on a couple of occasions.

At first you start to shiver, your teeth chatter, and you stamp your feet and dream of beer and warm fires. Then it starts to burn. And nothing burns like the cold; but it only burns for a little while. It sets in your very bones and saps you of your strength and resolve, and eventually you can't resist it. It's easier to just sit down and go to sleep.

And that's when it goes for the coup de grace. When death comes, you don't have enough sensitivity left to feel any pain near the end. You become weak, start feeling drowsy, and then everything fades away. Death welcomes you, like an old friend, offering you a comfy blanket and warm milk. It is peaceful, a final end to prolonged suffering.

Back in the war, he had met a German POW in Remagen, who said that he had fought in Stalingrad. He lost his ears, three toes and his left pinky to the cold. He joked that he had gotten off lightly. A short while after, James and Steve had discovered a couple of Allied soldiers, frozen and buried three feet in the snow. One of them was sitting upright, M1 gripped firmly on his lap, a haunting smile plastered on his ghostly face. There were a lot of things James had forgotten over the years, but that smile, unfortunately, wasn't one of them.

James continued on his trek uninterrupted for a good two hours. Afterwards, he stopped by a giant rock formation that was oddly shaped: it twisted as it rose upwards, growing thinner and thinner until it ended at a pointy tip. It was carved, he realised, to look like a horn, standing upside down.

That meant this place wasn't as uninhabited as he had previously thought. But then, he reasoned, the carvings could have been made thousands of years ago. All conjectures, at this point.

He sat upon a small, round boulder and fetched his map out again from a pouch. The large ink dot in the center had barely moved, a millimeter or two at most. He had covered at least five miles during that two-hour slog, he reckoned. He estimated the scale distance from his current location to the mountains and made some internal calculations. It rounded up to around two hundred and twenty miles, give or take a few. That put it around six days of travelling, maybe five days if he shed off some sleep for a day or two.

It wasn't the most difficult trek he had ever faced, but it wasn't exactly a walk in the park, either. He had no supplies or knowledge of the terrain or possible hostiles. James glanced briefly at his torso; the glimmer of the blue over-shirt had dulled, but the entire ensemble still stuck out a like sore thumb in all the whiteness. He smiled glumly; he would have dressed more appropriately- and more inconspicuously- if he had known beforehand he was going to be in a frozen wasteland for some time.

He looked up, ready to get off the boulder and resume his journey. But he froze. His mind went to full alert as his hand immediately darted towards the holster. The outline of a shadowy figure was visible through the fog. It was a dozen feet away at most, and it was getting closer.

James gripped the handle of his Luger tightly and pulled back the safety lock. He didn't make any sudden move, but waited there, sitting on the boulder. As it approached, James noticed that it wasn't standing upright, but was prone and on all of its limbs. Yet it rose up to three and a half feet easily.

Perhaps it was a pony?

But as the animal drew closer, James could tell that the leg to body ratio wasn't quite right. It was wide, definitely of greater girth than a pony, but it wasn't wide enough to be as big as a bear. That left only two possibilities: something canine or feline.

And with James being where he was, there could only be one answer.

The beast stopped when it was within three feet of him. It was indeed a wolf, but it was larger than any wolf he had ever seen. It was positively monstrous. It stretched over five feet in length. Strong muscles pulsed all over. Its head was bigger than that of a typical gray wolf, and its legs were longer in proportion to its body. Its snout and jaw were markedly leaner and more pronounced. Golden eyes peered at him; a stark contrast to the thick, snow-white coat which blended in perfectly with the background.

Could James take it on, in the event of a worst-case scenario? Maybe; but he would have to be quick about it. There would only be a slim window of opportunity, and it would be game over after that. The wolf was powerful enough to rip his arm right out of its socket. And if it had hunted other human prey before, it would know to go straight for his throat before anything else.

Presently, the wolf stood still, staring intently at him, as though it was sizing him up. Then, apparently satisfied, it barked, a hoarse, crackling sound, and turned its head to its right. It waited, as though for James' response.

James watched, unmoving.

The wolf kept on waiting, barking once or twice to break the silence. At this point, James was nonplussed. Did the wolf expect him to do something?

After a minute of this stalemate had passed, the wolf growled and came closer, going straight for James' feet as it did so. He lifted his Luger above his waist ever so slightly, careful not to attract the animal's attention with it. He started to rise from the boulder, but the wolf was too quick for him. It honed in on his left foot and bared its teeth, terribly sharp fangs that could probably tear his leg in half. It grabbed onto the legging of his black bodysuit and pulled, causing James to slide off the boulder and into the snow.

In that instant, terror gripped his mind and adrenaline started to kick in, but he resisted the temptation to level his Luger at the animal and fire at point blank range. If the wolf had wanted to mangle him, it had ample opportunity to do so. It didn't make sense to waste this much time. Clearly, the wolf wanted something from him. But what?

And then it dawned on him.

"Do you want me to follow you?" James said out loud. He felt monumentally stupid for an instant, but that passed when the wolf barked once again and turned around, wagging its tail expectantly as it did so.

James smiled, still incredulous at the prospect of a trained wolf, especially one this large and fierce. Nevertheless, he rose up from the ground and dusted his clothes off. The wolf started striding, and James was forced to quicken his gait as well to keep up with the animal.

The wolf led him on, into the thick embrace of the mist and the unknown. As James followed, he couldn't shake off the remnants of the suspicion that had persisted since the wolf had appeared. Perhaps this wolf was domesticated, but that didn't reveal anything about its masters. What if it was leading him into a trap? Travelling bands of looters in such situations weren't uncommon. If he did find himself in the company of such a group, then he would be at a distinct disadvantage.

James grunted in exasperation. Paranoia was something that came to him naturally now, and he hated that. Another reminder of how his life had been ruined during the years he had been... lost. He put his mind off any further suspicions for the time being. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

After some time, the wolf started to slow down, its nose lowered to the ground as it sniffed for something. It then proceeded, gingerly, until they reached their target. James relaxed, chiding himself for thinking the man in front of him could have ever posed a threat.

He lay limp on the snow, coughing softly as he acknowledged the arrival of his loyal companion and the help it had fetched in the form of James. He had a noble, proud visage that had grown deathly pale. He looked like a man who was entirely suited for the environment: a large cloak of thick, black fur was wrapped around a leather ensemble, also colored in black; it was torn violently near the gut. The snow around him was soaked with dry blood, and a sword lay beside him; the steel below the hilt was completely shattered.

His manner of clothing, coupled with his raven-black, shoulder length hair (and mild stubble) made him like look something out of the Middle Ages. A lord or a knight of some noble heritage, James reckoned.

The man smiled with great difficulty when the wolf nudged his cheeks.

"Good girl," he said softly. He turned to James and took a moment to observe the man's appearance. "You are dressed oddly."

"Well,'' James paused as he crouched, so that he was on level ground when he spoke to the stranger. "It's a long story. How long have you been in this condition?"

"An hour, give or take ten minutes," the man replied. "Can you help?" he asked, the worry evident in his voice.

James sighed. "Let me have a look."

James unfastened the leather tunic and pried it apart, resisting the urge to wince at the sight before him. A large gash stretched from side to side across his gut. The cut hadn't been deep, but it had done enough damage. James touched his cold flesh and a spurt of blood squirted out of the wound.

It was astounding that the man had survived as long as he did. The wound was already starting to fester; gangrene was visible at the edges. It would have been a stretch to keep this man alive if James had a first aid kit at his beck and call. As things were at the moment, it was simply hopeless. James reached for the man's hand and checked his pulse. It was quite high, and characteristically erratic.

"Who attacked you?" James asked.

Terror came alive on the man's face. It took great courage for him to speak, and he did so in hushed whispers. "We must not speak of them. To name them is to attract their ire, and you are lost once they have laid their cold eyes on your soul."

James nodded half-heartedly. Whoever his assailants were, James wouldn't be getting anything about them out of this man.

"What were you doing out here?"

"We were fleeing. But I got separated from the rest of the group...and that was the end of it."

"I see."

A group. That meant he could link up with them and get his hands on some supplies. Who knows, maybe they were travelling for the mountains as well. But the man had said they were running. Running from what?

There were a thousand questions that James wanted to ask the dying man. But he couldn't bring himself to pester the man so, when the life was draining out of his skin. The least he could do was to give the man some peace in his final moments.

"What's your name, sir?" the man asked, wearily. He was starting to shiver, the light starting to go out of his eyes.

"James."

"I am Jon," he managed to blurt out between coughs.

"Look, Jon..." James leaned closer, grasping one of Jon's hands as tightly as he did so, "There's no easy way to say this. You are going to die. And there's nothing I can do to stop it."

Jon simply stared on, unable to muster the strength to reply. His mouth was agape, and his breathing became heavier and heavier.

"It's okay," James said. He knew these were empty words, but he felt like he had to say them.

Jon was hyperventilating now. His eyes were darting everywhere, and his head was moving to and fro. James moved closer and clasped his hands around Jon's head, staring directly into the man's widened eyes.

"Jon. Look at me. _Look at me. _It's all right. Just let it slide over you. Let yourself go."

"I am afraid, Sir James..." Jon spoke at length, his voice starting to break. "I am afraid, and I am alone."

"You aren't alone, Jon. Do you have someone back at home?"

"A sister."

"Let her take you then," James said, forcing himself to smile. "Into the white light. Towards the warmth. Let her take you."

Jon nodded, and then lurched in pain, his hands instinctively darting for his gut. James held him down and put some pressure to the wound, hoping that it eased the suffering, if only a little. The man started to spasm, and James gripped his hands and clasped them hard. The spasms stopped as abruptly as they had come. After a while, James felt the warmth fade away, and the fingers became limp. Behind him, the wolf howled, and James could feel the bitter tang of its genuine sorrow.

James started to lower the man's hands, when suddenly he felt the strength return to the limp grip. Shocked beyond belief, he was caught completely off-guard when Jon's eyes shot open, glowing an unnatural, deadly blue. His senses recovered, James darted immediately for the Luger in its holster, but Jon was too quick for him. He shot up with deadly agility and went for James' left hand. James felt a quick pain shoot through his left wrist as Jon's teeth dug into it, and they held on tightly even as James tried with all his might to shake the grip off.

James pulled the Luger free from the holster and fired it twice at Jon's head. Bits of brain and skull showered out the back of his head, which knocked back in recoil, freeing James out of the death grip. James kicked at the torso for good measure, driving it into the ground. He quickly backed away, his gun still raised and leveled at Jon's head.

But that wasn't Jon anymore, and James realised what it was.

The corpse shot upwards once again and rose to its feet, its intent writ large upon its deadly blue eyes. Before it could do anything else, however, the wolf roared and lunged for its former master, its jaws closing in swiftly upon the throat. It attacked without hesitation, ripping into the corpse's neck with a savage ferocity that was unsightly; but James, transfixed by what was happening in front of him, found it difficult to look away.

A few seconds of mangling later, the wolf tore the head off with a final tug and threw it away into the wild. Then it sunk into the snow, and howled, aghast at its terrible treatment of its former master.

James shook himself out of the trance and hurried to his feet. There was nothing more he could do here; it was best to leave the troubled grounds. With a heavy heart and confused mind, he set off on his path once again. He didn't get very far; he collapsed in a heap, his wounded hand hurting more than he had thought possible.

He hadn't observed the wound closely beforehand; now that he looked at it, he noticed that it hadn't healed as quickly as the ones from the fall. He spotted something lodged inside the dental marks; he pulled it out, gritting his teeth as a brief flash of pain shot through the wounded area. It was a tooth fragment, yellowed and bloodied. Frustrated, he flicked it off into the open. He pulled out his knife from his waist and tore out a piece of the black bodysuit from his arm. He wrapped it around the wound as tightly as he could, and the pain dimmed for the time being.

His mind flashed back to what had happened moments ago. It was so ridiculous, so random.

Yet it had happened, and it had happened to him.

And as James ruminated, he realised that he was more shaken from the event than he had previously thought. He steeled himself. This was only the beginning. Something in the back of his mind told him that he would be seeing plenty of stranger things before it was all over. He needed to cope with it all and soldier on, lest he got lost in all the turmoil and chaos.

But what was he holding on for? He was already dead. He remembered what Steve the bartender had said, but it all seemed so hokum right now. Whatever did Ideas have to do with him? He had been asked to fight for his very existence, and he wasn't even sure that he wanted to. Why did he deserve to be saved, to be preserved, and someone like Jon deserve to fade away, to be twisted and turned into a mockery of himself?

It didn't make any sense, and for the moment, James didn't want it to.

Suddenly, James heard something fall in the snow. It was faint, but he was definitely sure it was no hallucination. And then he heard it again: a thump here and a thump there. He reached for his Luger again and pulled it out while reaching for his knife with his left hand. He didn't want to leave anything to chance.

He saw the unmistakable shape approach, and his guess was confirmed when the figure strode through the mist. It was the wolf, but there was something different about it, now. And it wasn't the fresh blood splattered around its muzzle; there was something in the way it stared at him, with those golden orbs, that felt oddly...disarming.

"You again," James said, his Luger now pointed squarely towards the animal's skull. "What do you want from me _this _time?"

The wolf barked, and James felt stupid for asking. Then again, it was a rhetorical question.

The animal stopped a few feet away from James, and sat up on its hind legs. It continued to stare at him, tilting its head askew as it did so. This was starting to annoy James to no end.

"You know, I bet you are useless," James spoke, louder than he had intended. He found that he couldn't stop himself. "I bet your tracking skills aren't worth their salt. The man was lying there for a whole hour, and it took you that long to find me? I bet you can't even sniff those bastards out, whoever the guys who attacked him were. I bet you are the exact opposite of a movie miracle dog."

The wolf yelped, lowering its head slightly.

"Yeah, I bet you are completely dumb. You look all tough, but you wouldn't last alone for two seconds."

The wolf raised its head and started to move towards James again. James thrust his Luger towards the animal in a threatening gesture.

"Don't," James shouted, and it felt like it hurt every fiber of his being to do so. "Don't, fella. Don't try to make friends with the human. I can't protect you. I couldn't save your master. Hell, I can't even save myself."

"We aren't going to survive this, whatever this is," James couldn't even stare at the wolf anymore. He averted his gaze and covered his face. "We are all going to die. I don't even know what's going to happen to a guy who's already dead, but it ain't gonna be pretty. We are going to lose. We are going to lose everything."

James felt something warm and wet slide past his right cheek, all slobbery and smelly. He removed his hand from his face and opened his eyes; the wolf was sitting beside him, now. It crouched ever slightly, so that it was looking at him from an upwards perspective. The golden orbs peered at him unflinchingly, but they neither judged him nor accused him. But there was something in them, some rare quality that James quite couldn't put his finger on.

And then it came unto him, like a revelation.

It reminded him of Steve. Not Steve the bartender, but Steve Rogers. It reminded him of Natasha. It reminded him of the Avengers. It reminded him of these people, specifically, because they had seen something in him, seen past all the horrible things that he had done and they had done something: something unthinkable, for which he could never forgive those people.

They had trusted him. And it was trust he saw in the eyes of the wolf.

"Oh, Jesus…" James croaked. His grip on the Luger loosened and it slipped from his fingers, dropping to the ground. He placed a hand on the animal's neck, caressing the fuzzy coat.

The animal reacted, rising to its feet and moving closer, edging its head past his shoulder. It rubbed its cheek against his own, his skin itching slightly from the rough motion. James wrapped his arms around its neck, closing his eyes tightly.

"Jesus. I don't even know your name…" his voice trailed off. The wolf cooed appreciatively in return. He rubbed his wrist against his eyes: they were uncomfortably moistened.

There were a thousand questions throbbing inside James' head, and he didn't have the answers to any of them. He didn't know who Jon was, or how he came into the company of the wolf. He didn't know what the man was doing there or how he came to be wounded. He didn't even know what this place was.

He didn't know if he was going to make it or not. But for now, that didn't matter.

He wasn't alone anymore.

And for now, that would be enough.


	6. Of Nightingales and Fear Lords

James tried to sleep. He really did. But there were dreams. Bad dreams; and soon, they turned into nightmares.

He saw flashes, random and erratic. They were memory fragments, he realized; and they grew clearer and clearer. He heard a muffled scream as he tightened a garrote around a man's throat. He took a deep breath as he peered down the scope at his target a mile away, then he squeezed the trigger and the air was torn with a crackling sound. The skull exploded a moment after.

James was tiptoeing up the stairs of a manor to the second floor, a minute away from smothering the children to death. One of them had seen him take care of the husband and wife, and the mission called for absolutely no witnesses. Inexplicably, his chest tightened as he committed the inglorious deed.

James blocked a furious right jab and countered with a brutal punch to the chest. He heard an unmistakable crunching noise as one of the ribs folded under the immense pressure. His opponent hunched over, and James took full advantage: he drove his elbow into the man's cheek, dislocating his jaw and causing him to tilt to the right. With ferocity, he shoved his right foot into the man's shin, which snapped and distorted gruesomely, as though made of cardboard. The man toppled to the ground with a pitiful howl.

As the medical staff came in and loaded the man onto a stretcher, James walked away, ignoring the fear-laden looks of the other initiates. This was a warning- a wake-up call meant to frighten these green operatives into picking up the slack and keeping up with their rigorous training. Or else he was going to do to every other initiate what he had done to this man. It took more than false bravado and a death wish to qualify for Project Zephyr.

James was sitting in his cell in the Gulag, which was damp, dark and cramped. He hadn't grown used to the chains on his hands, even after all the time he had spent in this godforsaken place. He reminisced about the other memories, which hung obstinately in his head, all vivid and lifelike. He wasn't himself when he did these things, but he had felt them all the same. The murders, the deceit, the destruction- they were all wrought by his own hands. Zemo's words manifested unbidden in his troubled psyche. Did he truly deserve redemption after all the things he had done?

The dull metal door cranked loudly as it was slowly swung open. He thought that the men had come to take him to the next prison fight, but he was wrong. Jack Monroe stepped into his cell, and James rose to his feet in surprise. Monroe didn't speak, but the intent in those haunting eyes was clear. The man closed in, his hands raised. James didn't do anything to resist. This was the end, he told himself. Cold hands brushed inadvertently against his cheeks and then tightened around his throat.

It all made sense.

This was how it was supposed to end.

* * *

><p><strong><em>Chapter Two: Of Nightingales, Raiders and Fear Lords<em>**

* * *

><p>James awoke with a start.<p>

The dream had passed, and the unpleasant sensation of his larynx being crushed was already a distant memory. Now, it was a burning sensation in his right hand that overwhelmed his other senses. His gaze darted to the wound, and he saw that it was open once again. The flesh was dried and charred.

In the moment after, he noticed a slender, black gloved hand hovering above his arm. The fingers were glowing a soft yellow. James looked upwards; the figure attached to the hand was draped in a silky black cloak, which clung snugly to the body in the face of the morning wind. The hood attached to the cloak hung low, obscuring all facial details to the eye of the beholder.

Seeing his surprise, the figure made a move towards James, the hand now glowing with greater intensity. James reacted instinctively, seizing the mysterious individual by the throat and slamming him hard against the snow. The hood fell down as the stranger hit the ground, and James saw that it wasn't a he, but a she. Locks of dirty silver hair fell across her broad temple, just touching the outlines of her wide, doe-like azure eyes. A single streak of yellow face paint ran from her temple to the tip of her cheekbone; it was a curious contrast to the complexion of her skin, which was as pink as an infant's bottom. She was young, with a spark of unbridled terror in her petrified expression that suggested that she was even younger than she looked.

The strangeness of the woman perplexed James, if only momentarily. He pulled out his knife, pressing it close to her jugular.

"Easy there," she said.

James ignored her, holding her pinned to the ground as he looked around to observe his surroundings. About five feet away from him, the wolf stood still in the snow. Its head was lowered, level with its spine,the fur on its coat raised and sticking upwards. Its fangs were bared, but it was leaning on its hind legs even as it stood its ground, as though it was prepared to flee at any moment. In front of him, stood a boy, dressed in an army-green bomber jacket and brown cargo pants. The thin, curved hilt of a sword stuck out conspicuously from his back. He stared down the animal with a defiant confidence that made James uneasy. The sight reminded him of himself in his hale days during the war; but then he realised that it really shouldn't. He had been seventeen when he had donned the red and blues and joined the war effort; the boy was a good five years younger.

The boy noticed James' gaze upon him, and looked up. His eyes whitened and a strange purple aura streamed off them. James felt as though he had been hit by a sledgehammer- but the blow was not aimed at his body, but rather his mind. Fissures of a painful past opened up at once. Images and flashes popped up at random, much like the dream, except infinitely more relentless. The siege persisted only for a fleeting moment, but it was more than enough. The guilt and hopelessness overwhelmed his resolve, and he found himself reeling from the onslaught.

The restrained woman took her chance; she kneed him in the solar plexus and followed up with a swinging back hand that threw him off her and to the ground. She was quick to capitalise, pinning him to the ground with her knee. She drew her hands together and a diffuse beam of light poured outward from the palms, condensing into the form of a longsword with an intricately designed hilt. The middle of it was a hollow circular emblem with a cross passing through it. The woman drew the sharp edge appropriately close to his neck, repaying the favor from moments before.

The situation was reversed now, and James was not entirely bereft of his humor as not to appreciate the irony. He slowly raised his hands above his head, staring intently at the woman as he did so. Gone was the deer in the headlights: the woman was now all business, ready to do whatever it would take to ensure her survival.

"Well, you have my attention," James said, trying to affect a cheesy grin but not entirely pulling it off.

"We aren't looking for any trouble," the woman said.

"Lady, you have me convinced on _that_ front," James grunted. The sword pricked uncomfortably against his exposed chin.

The woman smiled, and stepped back, unclasping her hands as the sword lost its coherence and dissolved into countless individual photons. She watched James scamper back to his feet- rubbing his throat reassuringly as he did so- with an amused expression. James was disconcerted by her stare: she was observing him with the sort of interest one would expect from a tourist gawking at an exotic animal in a zoo.

"I was trying to cauterise that wound in your hand," she pointed out, her tone now light-hearted and lined with relief, "No need to get so jumpy."

James glanced at the wound, and realised that it was indeed deadened from almost all sensations. Suddenly, he felt stupid for jumping to conclusions.

"Heh. You are a regular Florence Nightingale, aren't you?" James said, grinning sheepishly.

"I don't know what that is, but I will assume it's a compliment." the woman smiled impishly.

"Oh believe me, it is_. _So...introductions?" James asked.

"Right. I am Phyla. That's Alex," she pointed to the boy, who now stood by her side. The wolf circled his feet, not as alert as before, but still eyeing the boy with a wary curiosity. "And you are Captain America."

James shrugged. It had been a while since he had been called that. Not since the Trial, at least. For a moment, the gleaming impact-proof armor that doubled as his costume felt awfully constricting.

"James Barnes," he said, extending his hand. Phyla seemed to be aware enough of common customs that she took him up on the offer and shook his hand. "You can call me Jim, if you like."

"Where's your shield?" the lad that was Alex inquired bluntly.

"Well..." James hesitated. He wasn't sure where it was, himself. "Let's just say that it's a long story and keep it at that for the time being, shall we?"

"Fair enough," said Phyla. "He found you, you know. Alex, I mean. We were wandering, lost in that damned mist, and suddenly, he points his finger towards a random direction and says that we are supposed to go there. Precogs are annoying like that, you know. All cryptic and mysterious, that knowing smile always plastered on their faces..." Phyla frowned when she saw that Alex was indeed smiling crookedly, his eyes narrowed, a certain mischief dancing in his dimpled cheeks. "You are a nasty little schlag, aren't you?"

"What?" Alex moaned. "I can't help myself. That's just how it works."

"Anyways, we struck out in that direction and kept going until we found you," Phyla finished with a flourish.

"Just like that?" James asked, incredulous.

"Just like that," Phyla beamed.

James nodded quietly, internalising what he had just been told. It seemed too convenient. The chances of him running into stragglers in a place as desolate as this were slim to none. Yet the odds had tilted suspiciously in his favor; first it was the wolf, and now it were these two.

If things seem too good to be true, they usually are. He wasn't distracted by Phyla's quirky, friendly demeanor; the woman obviously knew how to handle herself, and those light powers of hers made her that much more difficult as an opponent. But it was the boy, Alex, who made him truly uneasy. The deluge of fears buried and forgotten was still vivid in his mind, and he was in no hurry to experience it again.

To James, Alex seemed to be even more of an anomaly than Phyla was. There was a deadness behind those young eyes, and James had to suppress an urge to shudder.

It was something that he knew all too well. He had seen it often enough when he had stared too long into the mirror.

Still, he knew better than to argue against cold, hard logic. Two swords were better than none. He would need their help if he ran into any further unpleasant surprises: namely, the nameless attackers who had fatally wounded Jon. And who knew what else was lurking behind the cover of the snow and the thrice-damned mist.

James fetched the map from his belt of pouches and unrolled it, holding it flat and above his waist so that the other two could see it.

"So...you have any idea about where you want to go?" James asked.

"Not really, no," Phyla replied. Her vigor drained slightly; she had realised the fact herself only after saying it out loud.

"I met a man yesterday. He spoke of a group. They are travelling across the valley." James decided to leave out the rest of the unpleasant details. He would fill them in later, if need be. "If they have any sense, they will camp out in the forest here," James pressed his finger against the scale drawing of the trees, "It's the only resting stop they will have before the mountains. We can catch up to them if we put in a good day's march. We will have to stick to the low lands here, near the glaciers," he traced his fingers back to the ridge formations, "Weather will only get worse the higher up we go. From there, we can head north-east and we will be seeing trees in no time. We can gather our wits after that, and maybe go our own separate ways if that's how it works sound about right?"

Phyla curled her lips and turned towards Alex, as if to seek his approval of the proposal. The teen stared at her with a queer, unreadable expression, and then smiled,his young features thawing into a more amicable mood. And it seemed to James, in that fleeting moment, that this was an ordinary teenager. If only that were true.

"See? I told you he would be useful," Alex said, patting the wolf softly on its head. Evidently, the animal had taken to the boy after the bout of initial apprehension.

"I appreciate the vote of confidence," James paused, scratching the stubble on his chin as he contemplated his present situation. These two would depend on him now. Well, these two and the dog. He hadn't held a lot of leadership positions in his lifetime, and the handful of occasions that were the exceptions didn't turn out exactly laudatory when all was said and done.

Still, the task had fallen on him, and he wasn't about to shirk away from it. Besides, he had seen the likes of Rogers, Stark, Cage and Barton lead from the front through all those years. He was bound to have picked up some pointers about it, he reckoned. And he would hardly be leading a team of elite superheroes on some insane quest to save the fabric of the universe, or anything like that.

He probably wouldn't be too shabby, if he put his mind to it.

"Alright, then," James said, a precarious smirk present on his face. "Let's get going."

* * *

><p>An hour later, James could scarcely believe his luck.<p>

After persisting for the entirety of the day and a half he had been in this wasteland, the mist had finally given way. The vista revealed as the curtain was lifted was nothing particularly breathtaking. On the ground, there was nothing of note but snow for as far as the eye could see. But James could spot the terrain gradually sloping downwards as they traveled north-east, and that meant that they were drawing ever closer to the glaciers.

The sky was a drab grey, and there were no clouds. The lack of fluidity made it seem artificial, as though it was painted on a giant, spherical canvas. Then again, there was nothing natural about the situation James now found himself in. James' mind drifted towards a common axiom. _When life hands you lemons..._

The mountain range dominated the horizon, with one particularly huge mass of rock and snow standing a good thousand feet above the others. It was tipped with ice, like silver, but its sides were naked, the bronze-red complexion of its body appearing rather dull with the absence of sunlight.

As James looked at it, he felt dread stir inside his gut. It grew and twisted and morphed; what was first intangible now became something more concrete, though still vague nonetheless. The sound of the wind grew conspicuously louder to his ears. He could swear that the wind spoke to him, in a language that was ancient and alien, beyond the grasp of a mortal from modern times such as he. Somehow, he knew that it spoke of fell things, of an incomprehensible power and the wrath it held for all walking things.

James ignored it and looked away, though the raw fear lingered on for several moments after. Frankly, he had more than enough of nigh-omnipotent entities for a lifetime. He couldn't care less if such a thing was, indeed, out there somewhere, lying in wait for unwary travelers. He would cross that bridge when he came to it.

He turned his gaze to nearer points of interest, taking a moment to observe Phyla more closely as she traveled beside him. The golden lined cloak billowed gently behind her, leaving her inner ensemble open for inspection. The fabric seemed to be a curious cross between latex and leather: it was black, but there was a different, duller sheen to it than the satiny black of the cloak. The golden cross design from the sword was present here as well- it ran vertically upwards from the tip of her ankle to her collarbone, with the central, circular piece looming large a little above her bosom. There were two golden bracelets on her wrists; the right bracelet was longer and of a more rounded shape, with dimple-less cardiod-like protrusions rising out of its body. The left one was less ornate; it was a simple, cylindrical band.

The sight of it, however, stirred something deep inside James' mind. He realised that he had seen bracelets identical to the latter, albeit silver ones, worn by the Protector, an alien by the name of Noh-Varr.

The young man, though an Avenger like James himself, was an enigma: he barely talked and kept to himself, and was only seen in the company of Stark, helping the latter in matters of engineering that were several degrees above James' own rudimentary understanding of the field. He had energy powers as well, James recalled. That meant the bands were the sources of power. He noted this down in his mind; he might have some use for it in the near future if things ever went wrong.

"Gods!" Alex grumbled, furiously rubbing his palms as he tried to keep up with the other two. "Don't you get bothered by the cold? It pokes at your skin like a thousand tiny needles. I never had to deal with an environment where the temperature was lower than ten degrees Celsius and I sure as hell hope that I won't have to again. This absolutely sucks."

"Easy there with the potty mouth, kid," James cautioned.

"For the record, I am eleven. And you aren't my dad." Alex stared levelly at James. This was a kid who didn't take well to being bossed around.

James grinned nervously. "I am glad I ain't your dad."

"Whatever."

The boy didn't grumble after that.

"And what about you, Lady?" James began, in an earnest attempt to make conversation. "Does the cold get to your bones as well?"

"Not really," Phyla replied after a moment of deliberation. "I am used to travelling through the vacuum of space. This feels like a gentle breeze compared to what it's like out there. You know, near absolute zero levels and what-not."

"Uh huh. Lady, can I ask you a question?"

"Lady has a name." She winked sideways at him.

"Well, it's a bit of a mouthful."

"It's only two syllables. I mean, I have met people with seventeen syllable pet names. Don't ask me how long their formal names were."

"Look, can I just call you Phy?" James asked, chuckling.

"You can," Phyla drawled, "but only if you don't insist on calling me that all the time."

"Right," There was that cheesy grin on his face again. One day, it would be the death of him. Thus, it was fortunate that he was already dead. "You aren't human, are you, Phy?"

"Kree, born and raised. Well, born in a vat of genetic material stolen from the universe's greatest protector and raised by a virtual reality construct which fed me with memories of an artificial childhood, but you get the point," Phyla laughed.

"Actually, you lost me at universe."

"Let me guess, you hate cosmic stuff?"

"Yeah! How did you know?"

"There was this other Earther I met a while back. Jack guy. How could a guy who had dyed his hair red, white and blue be anything else? And his only other defining characteristic was that he hated- I mean, absolutely loathed- cosmic stuff. He wouldn't stop harping about it every five seconds."

"I can relate with the guy. I didn't really get neck deep in the space stuff like a lot of other Avengers probably do, but there are two missions I can remember off the top of my head. Absolute chaos. One time, Thor was swinging his hammer like hell at this giant purple guy with this elaborately designed bucket on his head-"

"I think you mean Galactus," Phyla suggested.

"Probably. I am not so good with these sort of names. Anyways, so Thor is giving all he has at this freak and then some, but he is just standing there, like he could take that all day. And all the while, this strange Conan-looking guy is yelling nonsense, and dinosaurs are running wild over Manhattan. Dinosaurs!"

"Are these...dinosaurs supposed to be a big thing back on Earth?" Phyla asked.

"Yeah. Big and scaly and all lizard-like. But more importantly, they are supposed to be extinct. It's almost as bad as dragons coming back to life and going all medieval on our sorry behinds."

Phyla nodded, her facial features contorted as though frozen in mid-frown. She inhaled deeply and then exhaled, the lingering trace of unpleasant remembrance evident in her eyes. "Well, if you put it like that, then it must have been bad."

"It was. Not just the bit with the dinosaurs, but the entire thing. These other people I was with, they were no slouches, I can tell you that much. But we were all over our heads with that mess. Things were spinning out of control and it was all we could do to just hang on and not get swept away in this swirling spiral. We had no idea about what the hell we were supposed to do and somehow, we still came out on top in the end. It was a bad hair day, all things in consideration."

"Well, the folks I used to run around with, they would have called that a _quiet_ day."

James furrowed his brows. "Is that so?"

"Oh, yeah. We got into all kinds of insane things. And none of us had half an idea about what we were trying to do. Then again, saving the galaxy doesn't exactly come with a rigid job description, does it?"

"You have got a point. So...how did that work out for you?"

Phyla stopped short, the pink of her face now an ashen pale. The natural mirth had drained from her, dragging the veneer of cautious optimism down with it as it had gone. She turned and looked right at him.

"Long story short, I died."

"...I am sorry." James really didn't know what else to say. "I shouldn't have brought that up."

"It's not your fault. You couldn't have known. And you shouldn't be sorry. You aren't the d'ast afterbirth who did that to me. He's supposed to be dead, himself. Flarker just won't stay that way, is all."

"Yeah, that seems to be the case for a helluva lot of people..." James trailed off, lost in thought. Death wasn't what it used to be. Some people were just rubber and it was glue. James knew better than to expect himself to be one of those lucky ones.

James thought about picking up the conversation where it left off, but decided against it. Phyla was in a dark state, and he figured she probably had a lot of pent-up frustrations that bubbled to the fore thanks to his insensitive prodding. He was more than happy to give her the space to sort the emotional baggage out and regain her composure.

The only other therapeutic approach he could possibly think of recommending to her would be to seek out a group of unassuming goons and whack them to her heart's content. It always worked for him whenever his mind was hung up on the bitter past.

Then again, that wasn't an option anymore.

* * *

><p>It was night. But it was difficult to tell, for the grey sky had dimmed only a little. Neither the stars nor the Moon was anywhere to be seen, although the ethereal glow characteristic of the latter radiated through the landscape.<p>

James was indifferent to this paradox. It was just another quirk in a laundry list of oddities.

James was sitting, his back propped up a boulder. It was his turn to do guard duty for the next few hours. Phyla had just gone to sleep minutes prior.

James felt oddly alert. His mind was calm and collected, clear from the usual haze left in the aftermath of a hasty forty winks. It was not as though he felt full of energy; rather, he simply didn't require any energy. Comparisons to Frankenstein's monster and Dracula flitted awkwardly through his mind. Although patently ridiculous, they felt apt, in a strange, roundabout way.

Despite his hyperawareness, James didn't notice the wolf as it slipped quietly into his field of vision. Its coat blended too well into the background, and its paws were placed with deliberate purpose, nary a sound emanating as they touched the ground. It was only when its jaw unclenched, causing the prize captured within to fall to the ground with a soft thud, that James saw its eyes, and mistaking those for signs of some ghostly presence, immediately started for his gun. Reason replaced irrational fear in the moment after, and James squinted hard at the unknown figure slumped against the wolf's front legs.

It was a mountain goat of some kind. Long, silvery sideburns flowed from its cheeks, and the goatee off its chin was a dark brown, reaching down to its hooves. Its shoulders were swollen, like cannonballs. The creature's facial hair was worthy of an Ubermensche created out of an unholy union between Abe Lincoln and Fu Manchu. Its huge horns, V-shaped and corkscrewed like giant drill bits, formed as good a crown as any.

It was remarkable that the goat retained its impressive dignity in death. That was quite the feat, considering that most cadavers required taxidermists and morticians to achieve that sort of splendor.

Curious, James rose to his feet and approached the wolf, who had dug into its meal with feverish aplomb. He peered at the corpse below the predator's hulking form. His earlier admiration for the animal was brutally deconstructed from this closer perspective. In the end, a cadaver was just that: a cadaver. There was no reconciling anything else, no matter how one looked at it.

A large portion of the goat's hind quarters, legs and all, had been torn off. The flesh around the tear was blackened and uneven, probably picked clean by carrions taking opportunistic stabs while the larger predators were too busy with squabbling between themselves. The waft of pungent smell, a musty miasma of roses and mustard gas, was instantly recognisable.

It was telling that he was such a connoisseur of decomposing flesh. There were days when he couldn't tell apart one brand of cologne from another.

"That's rotten, you know," James said to the wolf, which continued on undeterred with its meal. "You lazy bum, you just picked that off the ground, didn't you? Look at you, stuffing your face with it. Well, don't come running to me with your tail between legs if you catch the plague or something..."

The wolf paused, its ears flattened. It averted its gaze from the goat with a certain reluctance, its tail wagging harmonically as it stared quizzically at James. Then it scrounged the carcass up by its neck, dropped it in front of his feet and backed away hastily.

James frowned.

"Geez, girl," James shook his head as he touched the corpse with the tip of his boot and nudged it towards the cautious canine. Now the animal regarded it with certain dread, as though it was indeed infected with the plague. "what we've got here is failure to communicate..."

"Pity," a familiar voice echoed from behind. James turned around to see a nonchalant Alex, smiling blithely and leaning against the singular boulder. A leather scabbard, the sleeveless, curved hilt poking out of it, was lying beside the rock as well. "That looked quite inviting."

"Aren't you supposed to be sleeping?" James inquired, as he walked over to the lad and took a seat beside him.

"I tried that. It doesn't work so well, after the first twenty minutes or so. Not that much difference between sleeping and not sleeping...at least, not in this place," He frowned darkly. "Sleepwalking through a lucid dream, is what it feels like."

"Yeah, I know the feeling. Not that I could have put it as eloquently, though, "James glanced at the carcass. Having overcome its earlier aversion, the wolf was tearing through its scavenge with new-found enthusiasm. "You really feeling hungry, kid?"

"Literally? No."

"Then why would you want to eat...you know, that?"

"I don't want to eat _that _in particular," Alex clarified with an exasperated snort. "I was thinking more along the lines of eating in general."

James stared at the teenager, his impassive features not giving away his piqued curiosity. Food had never been anything more than a necessity. He didn't see that much of a distinction between hot dogs and fine dining, despite Natasha's many attempts to housebreak him in that regards.

Now a beer...he could see the point in craving for that. But he wasn't going to tell that to an underage kid. If the sword and attitude was anything to go by, this one was rowdy enough as it was. He certainly didn't need the prospect of alcohol muddling his brains.

"Well, as you can obviously see," James spoke, a little too forcefully; the resulting hoarseness made his throat ache. "food..._edible_ food, anyways, is pretty scarce to come by. We have to make do with what we got."

"I know," Alex stated dryly. Clearly, he wasn't fond of being on the receiving end of clichés. "Just thinking out loud, is all."

"I sort of see your logic there, though. A little wishful thinking never hurt anyone. Hell, it can be pretty useful if you know how to use it."  
>"How's that, now?"<p>

James chuckled.

"Back when I was your age, the best I had was a government-issue bunk and a bowl of gruel from the mess hall. And when I say the best, I mean it. Had to camp on terrain that would make this look like the Hilton's presidential suite. Survived on a diet of bugs and leaves for weeks at a stretch. Let me tell ya, it gets darn difficult to focus on your current objective when your body's preoccupied with having an allergic reaction to ladybugs.

"But that's the catch: you got to turn your weaknesses into strengths. What we have got in front of us here...it doesn't have the best of prospects, but if you keep at it long enough- if you stick to the beaten path, you are bound to get somewhere sooner or later. And who knows, eventually that bunk might turn into a soft, comfy bed, and that gruel might turn into homemade apple-pie."

"Actually, I prefer takeout, myself."

James shook his head in pity.

Alex shrugged and continued. "I could murder for a cup of coffee right now, though..." the lad rubbed his arms furiously, shivering involuntarily as he did so.

"Good luck with that. Nothing short of deicide is going to get you that in here."

Alex stared at James, lips curled in knee-jerk contemplation. His facial expression was quite peculiar; it was two parts aggravation and three parts amusement.

James wondered what could have been so funny about what he had said. Like any other blue-blooded seventeen year old in ridiculous tights, he had made his fair share of quips back in the day, but he sure was no Abbott or Costello. Hell, nowadays he wasn't even a Tony Stark in that department.

"What was that?" Alex asked suddenly, his voice cracking with the influx of abrupt alertness.

James sat upright, eyes, ears and nose searching for signs of any disturbance. The wolf had stopped eating; it was staring intently at the sky, ears erect and tilting forward, lips puckered to reveal clasped canines.

And then James heard it: a faint, but definite strain of shrill, ululating cries, a principle voice providing an unwavering, low-key undertone of bass with a stress on 'O', with several louder voices joining in for brief additions, some adding to the familiar brass and others tempering it with hoarse baritones that focused instead on 'U'. This persisted for several seconds; and then the rough-hewn symphony turned into a cacophony of squabbling actors, the random, short bursts distantly reminiscent of Native American war chants. The chaos escalated, with one voice rising on top of all the others and whining louder and louder in quickly repeating syllables. Defeated, the other voices eventually died down in deference to the dominant one, which let out one final cry of satisfaction, its echoes spreading out like ripples on a pond, before silence reigned supreme once again.

James shifted his gaze from the vacant sky to Alex beside him, who was still utterly transfixed by what he had just heard. James couldn't blame him; his hands were starting to itch, as was the back of his neck. His mind, understanding the phenomenon at once, was rational and calm, but his body still retained the primal fear that had been passed down to him from his earliest ancestors.

"So..." Alex spoke, a little too softly. He paused, deliberately speaking louder from there onwards. "You seem to know what that was."

"Of course I do. And frankly, so should you. Seeing how most kids your age seem to be hogging the television 24/7..."Alex mumbled 'Xbox' under his breath. To James, that may as well have been Hebrew, so he ignored that and answered the boy's query. "That was wolves, howling."

The boy nodded quietly, hand instinctively edging towards the nearby scabbard. James noticed the reflex.

"Relax. That wouldn't do you much good at this range."

"I know," Alex said, dimpling. "Stupid reaction. So since you seem to be the one with the nature channel experience..."

James snickered. The experience was a bit more up front and personal than that.

"...what were they howling about?"

"Regrouping, at first. Either right before or after a hunt. Then it turned into a good old-fashioned disagreement for one reason or another. Probably about food. Maybe territory, even. Whatever it was, an Alpha stepped in and reminded everyone who's the pack leader...and that was the end of it."

Alex absorbed the news in silence, staring intently at the gigantic form of the resident wolf, sleeping soundly after a meal that had barely satisfied its voracious appetite. The leftovers were practically nonexistent: a meaty ribcage and a smashed skull were all that remained.

In such a peaceful state, the creature's innocuousness temporarily dispelled Alex's lingering alertness, but the boy knew better. Then a novel idea took root in his fertile mind, and Alex smiled, a hawkish glint in his eyes, "You know, I was just wondering what wolf meat tastes like..."

"Hah! Don't even think about it. The beasts are canny folk, and notoriously hard to hunt. In spacious, lightly populated terrain like this, pack territories can stretch to hundreds of square miles, if not thousands. Plus, wolves are generally wary of people. Our scents are already up in the air, and they will know well enough to stay clear of wherever we go."

"What if this particular group is the exception to that rule, though?"

James grunted disapprovingly. "We will cross that bridge when we come to it."

Alex turned his gaze to the slumbering animal once again. "Say, how did you come upon that big lug in the first place?"

"Well, it's a bit of a yarn, that. Can scarcely believe it myself..." James gave him a brief summary of the encounter, leaving all the pertinent details intact as he did so. When he had finished, Alex scrutinised him, eyebrows raised and lips crooked. As any other purveyor of modern mass entertainment would have done in his particular situation, the lad couldn't help but ask, "You know, that sounds awfully like-"

James wasn't entirely pop-illiterate, either. "Yeah, I do know what that sounds like. It sounds absolutely ridiculous. But that's just how it is."It wasn't even the most absurd thing he had seen in his life, not by a long shot.

"Right..."Alex slumped his shoulders; there was an exasperation in that gesture that suggested he had exausted the entirety of his attention span for the reached for his sword, this time with deliberation and ran his hands over the scabbard, up and down.

"Umm, no offense," the boy said hurriedly, not bothering to make eye-contact with the bemused James,"but could we have a timeout? Most conversations I have end in 140 characters or less..."

"Hah! That's efficient."

Inwardly, James acquiesced to the boy's proposition. His sore throat was becoming harder to ignore with each spoken word. With a final shrug, he got to his feet. "Alright, I get the memo. I will leave you to your watch and try to get some sleep..."

"Yeah, good luck with that," Alex yelled after James, who was already in the process of slipping off his cowl. James flashed a knowing grin at the lad.

He liked the kid. Needed a little work on his social skills, but he figured that was the case for a lot of teens these days. What he couldn't figure out, though, were the sword on poking out of the kid's back and the (occasionally) glowing eyes, but he reckoned there would be time for that later.

"We leave at dawn, latest," James instructed. Upon further thought, he added, "Or whatever substitutes for that here. Wake us up if we are not already awake by then."

"Well, how I am going to know the time?" Alex asked, pulling back his sleeve and waving his bare wrist.

"Use your biological clock! It will never let you down. Now hush."

James laid down, his head resting on his hands. The snow made for a very uneven (and delicate) bed, but it was something he had grown used to by now. He closed his eyes, and his consciousness gave way soon after.


	7. Burn My Shadow

James was in a strange place that was completely white, soundless and airless. Upon further inspection, he realised that 'completely white' wasn't an entirely accurate description: a spherical, glumly colored barrier enclosed him from all sides. He wondered how exactly everything was so bright when he was so completely cut off from any discernible source of light, but he sure as hell wasn't going to complain about that.

He waded through the emptiness, trying to ignore the weird stirring in his stomach and wondering if that's how astronauts felt in their weightless space stations. He looked closely at the circular barrier, and wondered exactly how he had deduced that it was, indeed, circular. It was gigantic, and the curvature was barely noticeable. It was segmented into uniform rectangles, and the thin, viscous layer covering them, made up of thousands of giant grey and white pixels, seemed eerily similar to television static. As if on cue, the pixels coalesced to produce infinite widescreens, each playing loops of certain scenes that were intimately familiar to him. The ones closest to him were all playing variations of Jack Monroe murdering him in increasingly creative ways.

_Figures._

He was trapped in a hollow sphere made up of his nightmares. How stupidly symbolic.

He snapped his eyes tight and thought as willfully as he could._ Wake up. _He opened his eyes and was greeted by the same whiteness. He tried again and received similar results. "Wake up!" he almost screamed. His throat still felt sore as hell.

He opened his eyes. He now had an overwhelming desire to wring the neck of whoever had coined that adage about third times and charms.

After some moments of contemplation, he supposed that he needed a path, with a number of distinctly defined checkpoints, to get out of here. He thought about that good and hard for a while.

No dice there, either.

There had to be something he was missing, he reckoned. It was like in school, where he always forgot to carry the twos in kindergarten. He had to be overlooking something in his bull-headed way of approaching this dilemma.

And that something, he realised after a while, was perspective.

This wasn't something he could escape from. This was a Category-5 Hurricane, a Deluge, a Tsunami of awe-inspiring power that was all encompassing in scale and scope. He needed a refuge, a place to hole up in and wait until it died down.

He needed a _house._

Four triangular sheets, vividly coloured, materialised simultaneously. They surrounded him, interlocking at the edges to create a giant tetrahedron. They cut him off from the hypnotic pulsation of the looped nightmare screens, replacing the epileptic sensation with more soothing, albeit awkwardly posed, still shots.

He looked around, expecting some kind of a door. He shrugged when he found none.

It wasn't a house in the strictest definition of the word, but it would do.

He directed his attention towards the images.

In front of him, pale, dainty hands rested on a shawl-covered lap, the slender fingers wrapped around a cryptic doorknob.

To his right, he saw an extended hand reaching towards a lean figure not more than five feet away, his stature shrunken with fear and despair as he vacillated at the edge of a rooftop. His features were indiscernible in the darkness of the moonless night.

To his left, a large, meaty fist was drawn, gloved in dark red, bulging muscles of the arm straining against a white fabric as the limb drove through the air with frightening speed. When James looked at that, he could almost taste that familiar ache and subsequent numbness in his jaw.

Finally, beneath him three pairs of bare, almond-skinned legs trotted along a damp, grassy riverbed, hems of weatherworn frocks twirling with abandon in the morning breeze.

These visuals were flat and stationary, yet when he looked at them he found a nuance of depth and motion; a dense fluidity existed among the grains of these pictures, swirling in an invisible yet perceptible manner, casting the illusion of a thin surface guarding unexplored wonders beyond it.

He started towards one wall, intending to touch it. But then all of a sudden, he felt something hit his head. Dumbfounded, he looked around and saw nothing out of place. He rubbed his temple, nursing the fading pain when he felt something sting his scalp.

It was little more than a pinprick, but soon it was a thousand pinpricks, and that was enough to wake him up.

* * *

><p>James sat upright, rubbing his numbed cheeks back to his life as he took in his surroundings, which were significantly changed from how they had been but an hour ago. The mist was back, and it had returned with a vengeance. It was so dense that it seemed to be almost tangible, as though he could grab a handful. The temperature had dropped like a stone, and he could feel his bones creak even through the insulated lining of his suit. Snowflakes drifted serenely through the air, taking detours in the form of freeform dance routines. The snow level had risen noticeably as well.<p>

However, there still remained the matter of determining the identity of the mysterious assailants who had taken a liking to his head. And thankfully, he didn't have to exert much effort on deducing the answer, for without any warning a pea-sized ball of white fell through the fog and hit him squarely on the head. When he touched the point of impact, he found nothing but flaky bits of snow.

"Soft hail," he said to himself softly. _Thank God for small favors_. If that were regular hail, he would have had a concussion at the very least.

It was Phyla's turn to take watch now, and she was sitting upon the boulder. When James looked at her, he saw that her otherwise unblemished face was covered in irregular patches of snow. "It tickles, doesn't it?" she said, smiling. She welcomed this little distraction, finding pleasures in the small things of the afterlife while there was still time to do so.

Her sincere glee was infectious, and James couldn't help but grin back as he pulled the cowl over his head. That lessened the intensity of the impacts significantly, and now indeed they 'tickled'. He felt a twinge of regret when he realised that he had never gotten around to thanking Stark for the impact proofing.

It was then that he heard it.

Now, James had good ears. He didn't have Superman ears, eagle ears or even dog ears. He just had good human ears. You would be surprised at the number of sounds we have learned to block out in our day-to-day lives. James just knew how to listen.

And when he heard that faint but distinct swishing sound tear through the fog, James listened good and hard.

It couldn't be the hail—it had a peculiar acceleration that was fairly distinguishable from gravitational pull. Puzzlingly, the sound was intensified in volume, but waned in frequency. And that was when he realised what it was.

It had to be projectile motion.

"Phyla! Shields!" he yelled, loud enough to break Alex's thin sleep. The boy heard the sound and knew what it was immediately. He swiftly grabbed his scabbard from the ground and swung it over his back.

Phyla was dumbfounded. "But why, they are harmless-"

"NOW!"

Phyla complied, erecting a hemispherical dome of light some ten feet in radius over their heads; and just in time, too, for in the moment after twenty arrows clanged cacophonously against the barrier.

Phyla's surprise at the attack was so palpable that her grip on the light dome slackened for a moment, and an arrow broke through the weakened lining. She recovered immediately after, and the reinforced barrier snapped the invading arrows in twain.

James waited a while for a potential second wave, and then ordered Phyla to dissipate the dome. He knelt down, picking up an arrow from the snow and examining it closely.

"You see that?" he showed the other two, twirling the arrow intently, "Iron shaft, which is pretty unusual. The broadhead," he pointed to the tip of the arrow, "has four blades, and made of steel, too. See how it's dipped in dried blood? Filthy arrowheads increase the chances of the wounded dying from infection. These people mean their business, that's for sure."

He stood up, tossing the arrow to the ground. He looked at the other two expectedly; judging by their looks of determination, they were of like minds with what he was going to say. Even Alex seemed to have adjusted to the stings of the hail.

"If they could track us here, in this weather," he said, his voice steady and composed, "they could track us anywhere, anytime. We need to make a stand."

It was then that he realised that the wolf was nowhere to be seen. He frowned. It had picked a hell of a time to go scrounging about in the wild.

"Alright," he said, drawing his Luger from the holster, "we need to set up a perimeter. Triangle formation. Watch your backs and inform each other when you spot any moving target. We don't move out until I say so. Is that clear?"

Phyla and Alex nodded. The latter actually seemed enlivened at the prospect of an impending skirmish. James didn't begrudge that-It's easy to get bored in the middle of nowhere.

They picked a ground with relatively level terrain and took their positions. The familiar sword with the inscribed crucifix hilt materialised between Phyla's cupped hands, and she drew it back as she stood in a defensive pose. Alex reached over his shoulder and drew the scabbard. With steely deliberation, he unsheathed his katana.

James was caught off-guard when he saw the unusual blade, for it was covered entirely in a dark crimson- obviously, a huge blood stain- that gleamed even in the dim light of the fog, more so than the golden hilt. Although the stain was dried, it seemed to possess a strange fluidity, as though it were some sort of ruby-red mercury. The weapon exuded a formidable aura as Alex wielded it, his perfect stance belying years of rigorous training and discipline.

James couldn't help but feel a little stupid for bringing a gun to a swordfight.

"I have something," Alex spoke suddenly, "Northwest. Range, 200 meters."

James focused his hearing in the direction, searching for the disturbance. He found it soon enough; it was faint, but he could recognise that guttural echo anywhere.

In general, wolves don't bark that much, and even when they do, it's usually for one of two purposes- either to alert others about danger or to signify that they are closing in on a kill. That there was a group of wolves hunting the travelers was now certain beyond the shadow of a doubt, and it wouldn't take the world's greatest wolf expert to guess what they were barking about at the moment.

Alex had caught on just as quickly. "It's them, right?" he paused, an unusual mixture of trepidation and eagerness seeping into his tone as he continued, "I thought they sounded familiar."

"You are a quick learner, I will give you that." James grimaced. He was trying to make some last minute tactical adjustments. Of course, their attackers were working with wolves. It was completely logical if one considered Jon's wolf, who was still conspicuously absent from this party. A fresh wave of paranoia attacked his mind- was it the beast that alerted them?

"You know," Phyla remarked wryly, "somehow, I get the idea that you guys know something about these attackers that I don't..."

"They are friends of his." Alex pointed towards James with his thumb. James simply grinned. He appreciated the levity in crunch times like these. "By the way, I hate to be_ that _guy, but I told you so."

"Well, kid..." James said, "we are on that bridge, and we are crossing it."

James hoped those weren't famous last words.

Now, they waited. The waiting was always the worst.

James would never forget that night in Pavuvu, when a draftee had gotten buck-naked in the middle of a freezing downpour, walked to the clotheslines where every grunt was busy taking their now-wet clothes off and then tried to mumble something incoherently to the impromptu crowd, waving his service sidearm like a maniac the entire time. He gave up after a couple of seconds and simply ate the bullet.

He glanced at the two standing by his side. Training and experience were two very different things. He just hoped they weren't about to find that out the hard way.

They didn't have to wait for long. Now they could all hear the noise, getting louder and louder at a blistering rate, and it was very much similar to the thundering of hooves.

"Contact." James announced tersely, "Foot-mobile. 9'o clock, 50 meters."

A dark silhouette tore through the mist, and its monstrous size, coupled with its unusual shape, was enough to give James pause as he took it in. This was no ordinary wolf. Hell, it wasn't even anything like Jon's wolf.

If their resident wolf had resembled a Shetland Pony in stature, then this one was closer to an American Bison on steroids. It was easily five feet at the shoulder, and perhaps ten feet in length from snout to tail. Its dense black fur became more apparent as it gallopped closer, as did its face, which was a terrifying mixture of bear and hyena-like features. Its muzzle was long like the latter's, and its eyes were black beads like the former's.

However, James was so captivated by the beast's appearance that, until now, he hadn't noticed that it wasn't alone.

"Well, isn't that swell!" James snorted nervously when he spotted the strange rider upon the saddled wolf.

He- if it was a he— was humanoid, but definitely wasn't human. He had a pale, dilapidated skin that was too leathery and dry, as though it was harvested from something else and then put over this creature's musculature in some twisted taxidermist prank. Fangs portruded out of wide mouth, and, along with the reddish, slanted eyes and flat nose, they looked appropriate on a face that only a mother could love. He was smaller than humans of average height, and he was bow-legged and long-armed, which seemed to swing limply like those of an ape.

He wore armor that was cobbled together from various sources: the vambraces and the greaves were made of corrugated steel, the gauntlets and boots of badly-tanned leather. A rusting steel-plate cuirass ran over a dirty grey tunic. There were no spaulders, or a helmet for that matter. Clearly, whatever group this creature hailed from didn't have that many of those, if they had any at all.

He shouted when he spotted them, speaking in a hoarse, biting dialect. He spit out the broken words in short bursts, pausing significantly between each sentence fragment. It was as though he hated to talk at all.

James agreed with that sort of sentiment. It was way past time for talking. He cocked his Luger and lined up the shot at the rider's skull.

The rider reacted immediately, fetching his bow and letting loose a flurry of arrows at the three of them with speed and accuracy that would make Genghis Khan proud. They ripped through the air despite the weather, the propelling force being so great that the arcing motions were practically nonexistent. Within seconds, they were within a hair's breadth of their temples- but even then Alex was faster. He spun his sword from his right side to the left in a great arc, snapping the iron shafts like a twig.

"Here," he said, putting his hand on the barrel of James' pistol and lowering it as he did so, "let me handle this."

James looked at him questioningly. He turned to look at Phyla, who was more amused than terrified at the proposition. James shrugged in concession.

"Knock yourself out, kid."

As affirmation, Alex switched from holding his sword double-handed to wielding it with his right, pointing it downward and away from his body, as though goading the rider to attack. He approached the mounted enemy with the utmost composure. There was no use sprinting in snow that reached up to one's knees.

The rider snarled, firing multiple arrows at the advancing teen in rapid succession. Alex simply swung his sword left to right, and then back again. It oscillated to and fro like a pendulum that also spun on its own separate axis, leaving a mirage of a blood-red rainbow in its wake.

The rider yelled in frustration when he reached for his quiver for the umpteenth time and grasped nothing but air. He tossed his bow to the ground and brought out a black, dirty scimitar. Alex continued unabated; the distance between them was scarcely ten meters, and decreasing.

The enraged rider kicked his steed hard with his iron-spiked spurs, and that galvanised it into an even faster gallop towards Alex. The rider continued to spur it on, holding the reins tightly in one hand while brandishing the scimitar menacingly in the other.

Alex waited until his enemy was within a few feet of his position before gripping his sword with both hands once again and lunging towards the incoming rider, who swung at him reflexively, overestimated his range and missed.

Alex gave neither him nor the wolf a second chance: he swung the sword in a massive uppercut, splitting the beast's muzzle, the rider's torso and skull in two like butter. Showers of blood burst forth from the gashes, and the crimson of the wolf and the oil black of the rider intermingled with entrails of both to create a dreary fountain of guts and gore. The wolf continued sprinting on autopilot for a split-second longer before throwing its rider off and crashing into the ground.

Alex landed on his feet, and took a moment to observe his handiwork.

Everything erupted into chaos after that.

Hoarse, bloodcurdling yells filled the air as looters rushed out of the woodwork from all directions, most of them on foot. There were a dozen of them, at least. The most physically fit specimens ran at them, some of them dual wielding strange swords that ended in an arc instead of a tip, while the leaner raiders formed a defensive line and shot arrows in suppressing fire. It was a clever strategy, meant to box the three in and serve them up to the shock troopers in a nice little package, wrapped up with a figurative bow.

The only viable reaction was to break ranks and engage the runners head on. James briefly locked eyes with the other two in a steely gaze, and their course was decided without any words being spoken. They dispersed and progressed towards their pursuers, each disappearing from the other's line of sight as they did so.

Of course, the raiders had counted on that. Divide and conquer was the name of the game. _To hell with that, _James thought with contempt. He was going to take them on in their own game and beat them, too.

He fired off quick shots as he strode towards them, targeting their limbs and their guts in order to disarm and disable them through non-lethal means. This seemed to work, too- the gaping holes left in the wrists and arms of some of the chargers effectively put them out of combat. The hand cannon crackled thunderously each time it was fired, an explosive declaration of intent that made no small impression on its victims.

But the huge recoil of the gun was too much for James' normal arm, which started to ache after the first few shots. This threw off his equilibrium, and an arrow flew through his wrist the moment after, the resulting surge of pain causing it to jerk back involuntarily and fling the sidearm onto the ground. Twin swords swung for his neck in a converging motion, and he barely dodged them by rolling past his attacker. He spun back, grabbing the arrow and tugged it out of his palm. The barbs pulled on his nerves like guitar strings, and the subsequent severance eked out a few electric notes that played Iron Maiden on his synapses.

Six brutes advanced on him in a pincer movement: two approached from the front while the other four blocked his left and right flanks. He spotted his Luger lying a good ten feet beyond the wall of advancing enemies. He fetched his knife from his waist, a deadly calm enveloping his being as he did so. The non-lethal option was out of the window.

One looter charged from the right flank, while two others tried to circle from the left flank to his back. Their movements were telegraphed, and James aimed to take full advantage of that. His Systema knife training was swimming to the forefront of his consciousness; now, the knife was no longer a separate weapon but simply an extension of his hand. He spun around to his right flank, parrying a sword strike and riposting his attacker in the jugular and the right internal carotid artery.

He transitioned seamlessly into Krav Maga, smashing his concrete-hard elbow into the face of one of the would-be-backstabbers, while he grabbed the other's neck in a crushing sleeper hold that cut off blood supply to the brain. He drove his foot into the elbowed raider's chest in a brutal strike that had the cumulative effect of a mild coronary stroke. He went down to his knees and flipped the subdued raider over, executing a standard snapmare. He jerked the neck upwards just before his opponent's back hit the ground. Newton's Third Law took care of the rest, and the spinal column severed in a sickening crunch.

He sprinted towards his three remaining foes, two of which were already drawing their bowstrings. The third, one of those dual-wielding, imposing thugs, thought it was better than to engage James head on, sheathing his swords and fetching the crossbow from his back. Crossbow strings were notoriously hard to pull: most medieval crossbowmen would bend over, hook the string to a metal claw they would have hanging below their waists, and stand up. This raider, however, drew his crossbow with his bare hands, grunting loudly as to demonstrate his raw strength.

James ducked instinctively even as he kept charging, easily dodging the arrows. But the crossbow bolt was a different thing; the crossbowman aimed low, and when he released the string, the bolt tore through the air at a hundred miles per hour. James couldn't see it, but he could feel and hear the air around him being shredded by the primitive missile. He swung his knife upwards just as the bolt was about to pierce his jugular; a resounding clang echoed as the bolt was snapped in two.

However, tearing through a steel shaft wasn't the same as tearing through an iron shaft, and the knife's edge was already blunted if not cracked. James saw a small opening in the brute's defense and took his chance, pressing the small red button at the end of the knife's hilt. The blade promptly shot off and lodged itself firmly inside the crossbowman's bloated throat.

This only served to enrage the brute further, who began drawing his next bolt immediately. This time, James was defenseless. The bolt entered his right thigh and pierced through to the calf, and James went tumbling over. A brace of arrows embedded themselves into his back the moment after.

The brute yelled savagely, discarding his crossbow and redrawing his swords as he closed in for the kill. Still on the ground, James tore out the bolt and the arrows. The death metal was still blasting through his pain receptors, but sheer adrenaline had drowned its volume considerably. James rolled clockwise, barely avoiding the twin blades as they drove into the ground. Before the brute could recover, he swung his legs counterclockwise, closing around the brute's neck in a vise grip. He then launched himself off the ground and spun to his feet, compressing his hard calf muscles as tightly as he could.

The subsequent crunching sound was all the confirmation he needed.

Now on his feet, James retrieved his detached blade from the corpse's throat. Even as he fitted it back into the knife's hilt, a new wave of raiders closed in on him from all directions.

It all blurred together after that.

And for that, he was thankful.

He reached past the miasma of the sharp and blunt force traumas, both inflicted and received, and observed the events of the fog-obscured horizon with startling clarity. Phyla's movements were so swift that she simply appeared to be a bulbous beam of light, zipping to and fro through the sky with the grace of a figure skater doing pirouettes in a zero-gravity environment. Huge black silhouettes were scattered across the surroundings, roaring through the impromptu battlefield with terrifying agility that was more often than not neutralised with a swift splash of crimson. Two such shapes tried to break ranks and approach James, but they were cut off- a golden lance tore through one, while the other was ferociously tackled by a searing white outline of similar girth that had appeared out of nowhere.

The battle frenzy was over before he knew it, and he found himself standing over a dozen limp bodies. The wounded outnumbered the casualties by a healthy margin; still, five fatalities were five too many. His own body was covered in knife gashes, and arrow wounds. He was used to the pain by now- but he couldn't say the same about his handiwork.

_What a waste._

He felt like an alcoholic who had fallen off the wagon the day after completing his first year of sobriety.

Not for the first time since he had woken up in that bar- and it certainly wasn't going to be the last- James found himself wishing he still had the shield. It was for their benefit as much as his. He fetched his Luger from the ground and holstered it, before setting off to search for his companions.

The weather was changing, and James had a feeling in his gut that it was changing for the worse. The soft hail had stopped falling, and that was pretty much the extent of the good news. The snow fall had become markedly acute, and the wind was starting to pick up at a steady rate. The mist was starting to fade, but James' visibility was still shot to hell.

It was the calm before the storm, and that truism could be very literal in this case.

The remaining raiders seemed to be aware of this possibility as well. He ran into some stranglers, and some of them shot off a few warning arrows in his direction before shouting hoarsely and retreating to the north. As if in protest, a bout of faint, mellifluous whining broke through the air, followed by a series of even fainter, dog-like yelps. This culminated in a forceful chorus of howls, once again commanded by that one domineering voice. The raiders shouted back in reply, some of them angrier than others, but eventually their voices died back, and the howling stopped shortly after.

James didn't plan on sticking around to find out what exactly the dispute was about. He wanted to get out of here in one piece, and he wanted that yesterday. There were worse things at work here than raiders and wolves.

It was shortly after that when James saw his general vicinity starting to increase in luminosity at a steady rate, with the strange light coming in from an increasingly skewed angle from the horizontal plane. When he turned back, he saw the source of this unusual phenomenon. A huge halo had appeared in the sky. It was shaped like an eye, with a dense nucleus that was bordered by distant, diffusive arcs on either side.

How and why this had appeared, James could care less about. What he did care about, however, was that it offered a window of enhanced visibility, and he was hell-bent on making as much use of that as he could.

And sure enough, he spotted two distinct silhouettes in the horizon- one was tall and slender, covered in a silky black that reflected a good deal of light, while the sword clutched in the hands of the smaller figure glowed like a jewel. That was all fine and good, but there was one thing that rubbed him the wrong way.

They were going in the same direction that he was, and they had a pretty good head start on him to boot.

"Alex! Phyla!" he yelled as loud as he could through cupped hands, "I am right behind you!" His words fell on deaf ears. The deafening sound of the snow fall was starting to overwhelm everything else.

"Turn back!" he yelled again, wading as fast as he could through two feet of snow, "You are going the wrong way! We need to re-"

He stopped short when he heard the ice beneath his feet crack, and he looked down to see that he was at the very edge of the glacier. A thin layer of ice waited some two hundred feet below.

"Talk about a close shave..."

James retraced his steps, intent on working out an alternate route to his separated companions. He hadn't gone twenty meters when he found a nasty surprise waiting for him.

Two huge wolves were trotting by, flanked at either side by two smaller pups, which were already as big as a Beagle. These were of the same kind as the raider mounts, but even then they were behemoths by comparison. By the way they carried themselves, there was no doubt in James' mind. This was the Alpha pair. They were each carrying great chunks of raider flesh in their jaws when they stopped still upon seeing him. They dropped the carcasses to the ground and stared at him intently, growling and wagging their tails as they stood their ground. Their spawn hid behind their great bodies, stealing furtive glances at the intruder while waiting for the parents to deal with him.

Slowly, James unholstered his pistol, taking a crouching position as he did so. _Don't break eye contact. Don't run. Don't make them see you as a threat._

A familiar flash of white registered in the corner of his eye. Jon's wolf had reappeared; it was silently stalking the Alpha pair from behind, keeping its head low and making no sound that was perceptible to the human ear. But the wolf ear is a thousand times more sensitive than the human ear, and the wolf nose a million times more receptive than the human nose- and sure enough, the Alpha female turned expectantly and barked angrily when it spotted the spy.

It all happened so fast.

The two lunged at each other, as black clashed against white. The Alpha male reacted immediately, launching itself towards the white attacker to help its mate. On reflex, James leveled his Luger and fired on the male from behind. The wolf roared, whirling back and sprinting at James with full force. James backed up as fast as he could while remaining crouched, getting off as many shots on target as he could. It was on him quicker than lightning, and before he could react he felt twelve hundred pounds of sharp force trauma crushing his gun arm and one ton of weight spearing him to the ground. A redux of the Zemo plane explosion blared through his pain receptors.

The impact proofing prevented the arm from being torn off altogether, but barely. It took all his focus and willpower not to slip into a shock and let go of his knife. With a mighty heave, he drove the blade on top of the animal's already wounded skull as hard as he could.

The beast reacted violently, jerking him around by his arm like a ragdoll. He swung his legs over the beast's back and wrapped them around its torso. He hung on, stabbing through the punctured skull repeatedly. After what had felt like an eternity of agony, the wolf finally succumbed to its wounds and slumped to the ground, almost crushing James' arm beneath it.

With unimaginable effort, James wrestled free a moment after to see that the female was still wrestling with Jon's wolf, whose snow-white coat was marred by huge gashes and torn-off flesh. James picked up his Luger with his left hand, fighting through the numbness spreading through his extremities long enough to get off a shot at the back of the female's unguarded skull. It collapsed in a heap and died shortly after.

James fought down the urge to vomit when he looked down at his mangled right arm. It was broken, and the calcium of his bones was visible at the epicenter of the bite. He had seen far worse during the Normandy Landing alone, let alone the War- but it was always a different, mortifying experience from one's own end.

Jon's wolf had sustained injuries of a less severe nature, but they were enough to give the mighty beast more than a moment's pause. It whimpered as it struggled to get to its feet. The pups, which were huddled together not far away, whined fearfully in response. This attracted the attention of the wounded wolf, which turned in their direction and stared silently. For the longest time, it made no further move.

James could empathise with the animal's plight more than one could imagine. The debilitating guilt that followed after orphaning children was intimately familiar to him.

James tore off the rest of the rags on his right arm and used them as a tourniquet to wrap around the wound. Even as he forced himself to his feet, James had a funny feeling in his gut that made him wary still. This time, he didn't bother holstering his gun. He might have further need of it.

The wolf approached the pups, which uncoiled and stared at her strange form with open curiosity. It pushed against their noses and they licked its muzzle in reply, yelping intermittently as they did so.

Yet this small moment of tenderness was just that- a moment, and when it passed, bottomless despair followed immediately after.

The temperature plummeted like a stone, and the pups were the first to react to the closeness of the fell presence, scuttling in opposite directions. The wolf turned, ready to pounce: but it wasn't quick enough, and it howled as something unimaginably sharp pierced past its hide as though it were paper.

It was a crystal sword that looked like a flattened icicle. As foreboding as it was, its wielder was multitudes more terrifying. It walked with a stiffness that brought to James' mind the Frankenstein movies of the twenties, except that there was a dreadful reality to this motion. It was humanoid, and shorter than a giant, but still damn taller than any human he had ever seen. It was naked, except for an ancient brown loincloth that didn't seem to hide anything worth concealing, anyway. Chalk-white, sinewy skin stretched over a skeletal, gaunt body, topped by a balding thatch of wispy white hair. It had deep blue eyes that burned, but they radiated coldness rather than warmth. James had seen them before- Jon had identical eyes in his reanimated state.

This had to be the nameless entity that the dying man had so fearfully referred to. And it had been waiting for James all this time.

James, like all good soldiers, was adept at compartmentalisation. He sectioned off the part of his mind reeling in horror and started unloading his Luger at the wraith. The bullets seemed to faze it not one bit, and it walked over to his position with deathly certainty. James emptied his clip, backing away to put some space between him and the advancing specter as he fiddled around his pouches for spare ammunition. He stopped when he couldn't find any more ground to maintain his footing, turning back to see that he had been driven straight back to the glacier's edge.

The wraith eyed James' left arm sinisterly, then outreached its shield arm and clenched its fist. Immediately, the pain receptors in his numbed wrist came alive, and the resulting agony spread through his body like wildfire, driving him down to his knees.

The wraith stopped only a few inches away from an exhausted James, cheeks drawn in and eyes widening and contracting as they peered down on him. Grim tidings were writ large in those bottomless pits.

_You are damned. _

_You are doomed._

_ There is nothing you can do to save yourself._

_Accept your fate._

Its edict being announced, the wraith raised its sword and touched James' chest with its end. Immediately, all the warmth drained out of his body and his pulse flatlined.

His life was flashing before his eyes.

It was 1945. He was clinging on to a booby-trapped plane roaring over the English Channel.

It was 2011. He was on a Chinook helicopter, and Natasha was mumbling something into his ear. He couldn't hear her.

With finality, the wraith pressed the sword, nudging him towards the edge. His limp body toppled over like deadweight. He fell through the ice, and the darkness of the water embraced him like an old friend. He fell deeper and deeper, at a rate that was so constant that he felt as though he was lying still.

It all made sense.

Maybe this was how it was supposed to end, after all.

But for the first time since he had woken up in that bar, James wanted to live.

Maybe he didn't deserve a second chance after all that he had done.

But damn it, he wanted to live more than anything else he had ever wanted in his life.

_"You are going to be alright," _Natasha said, that understanding smile upon her ruby-red lips.

James chuckled. Or at least, he thought he did.

_"No, really," _she widened her smile knowingly, _"You are going to be alright."_

And then the darkness parted like the Red Sea.


	8. Fire and Steel

_**Chapter 3: Threads of the Norns**_

* * *

><p>The Aequol knew that death was coming for him.<p>

It was a biological certainty. Aequols had lived in a world with gravity that would crush conventional carbon-based life forms to a pulp, and as such their internal organs were hardwired for stability and endurance, rather than efficiency and adaptability. His body simply wasn't equipped to deal with a potentially fatal infection, much less a highly contagious one of mysterious origin.

He had made his peace with death after he had to put down his only son. To describe his anguish here would take incredible effort and indescribable agony, for Aequols have long, uninterrupted strains of thought that stretch on for weeks at a time. There was no running away from the pain and the realisation that came after. The Aequols were used to surmounting the insurmountable. That was the way with their triumphs, and it was the same with their tragedies.

The truth of his personal oblivion was easily dealt with. Not so easy to handle, however, was the bigger truth. He was the last living Aequol. And he had only a few days left to live.

His name was Marrot. This was only his face name- the name reserved for casual conversations and exchange with other, quick-minded races. The true name- the soul name- was a carefully crafted, malleable epithet that started as one syllable and could grow to be as large and complex as the score of the Ninth Symphony, constantly changing over the course of an Aequol's life. The additions detailed all the accomplishments and experiences of one's life. To know one's soul name was to know the person intimately.

Marrot tackled the situation from a grass-roots level and worked up from there. Was the rest of existence going to be poorer without him? If the question was about him as an individual- of course, not. He wasn't a remarkable member of his society to begin with. He wasn't a philosopher, a scientist or a creator, but simply a librarian. He had nothing original or unique to contribute to his civilisation,let alone his world. He had ever been content recording the feats of others who had such qualities.

The question, however, was about him as a representative of his species. Would the universe take note of their demise? Certainly, his world couldn't. Languidus had been swept up in that reality storm like so many worlds before and after it.

Now, he was in a strange land, where the very ground and air were strangers. He had often looked at the giant pines of the forest, and wondered if they, at least, would mourn his passing. They were ancient things, he could tell, and at least they should know the importance of things lost forever to the ravages of time, never to return.

Could they see him? Marrot hoped they did, and that they found his physical appearance peculiar enough to remember him after he was gone. He was hunchbacked and over seven feet tall, even when standing on all four limbs. He had tough, pachyderm-like grey skin, though his chest and abdomen was a lighter white. Thin, yellow bioluminescent stripes ran all over his torso. The intricate pattern of these stripes were different and unique for each Aeqoul, though that may be difficult to discern for the untrained eye.

His head was pear-like, with a small skull and a giant jaw. He had black, beady eyes and a prehensile snout that ran a little past his chin. His circular mouth was always slightly agape, and when he opened it, it spread apart like a camera shutter, revealing a small tongue and three rows of rotating cheek teeth.

Would his form be of any particular interest to anyone after his death? Perhaps, they would skin him and put him in an exhibition for display in a museum or a zoo. On the other hand, they may not be interested in his whole body and rather preserve his head, which could serve as a mantelpiece in a respectable household. Or perhaps he wouldn't pass into such cultured hands- and maybe nomads would make a stew out of his insides and make clothes and accessories out of his hide.

These were stupid thoughts, he realised. He was going to die in the middle of nowhere, and there wasn't any community around for thousands of miles. He was most likely to become worm food, and even his sturdy bones would be nonexistent after a couple of decades. There wouldn't be any fellow Aeqoul left to kick dust over his bones, like he had done with those of his son. It was a sobering thought.

He liked the trees, but ultimately he was dissatisfied with them. What was the use of their knowledge if they could never tell another soul?

And thus, after much reflection, Marrot sat down inside his dilapidated tent and fetched his bottle of ink and spare scrolls of papyrus. He had decided that he would create a written account of the Aequol culture. After all, the written word had a greater lifetime warranty than the mightiest of civilisations.

All he needed was an audience.

* * *

><p>The Stranger fell from the sky, like a boon from the gods, but it wasn't a graceful fall by any means.<p>

His lanky body ricocheted off the sturdy trunks of the pines, his collarbone shattered and shoulder blade smashed like a china plate. An extended branch broke his spine. The final impact crushed his skull, unhinged his jaw and snapped both of his legs. He hit the ground blind and quadriplegic.

The pain was gigantic. His nervous system sparked back to life, as though it were a circuit board with a blown fuse that had just been replaced. Bones fused seamlessly, withdrawing automatically out of ruptured organs as they did so. Severed optic nerves reconnected, and the world resolved itself out of grey fog. With renewed resolve, the Stranger forced himself off the ground. The pain was nothing to one who had glimpsed beyond the veil of eternal suffering. As he regained his equilibrium, he saw that there was a shadow on the ground, getting bigger.

At last, Marrot had found his reader. He saw that the Stranger appeared to be, as one of the dwarves had put it, a 'hoomaan'. Ape-like frame, pinkish skin, opposable thumbs. The Stranger studied Marrot apprehensively as he drew closer, hand firmly gripped around the hilt of his giant sword. Not the ideal audience, Marrot mused. But this one would have to do.

Marrot stopped and grunted cordially, and caressed his visitor's back affectionately with his snout, and the Stranger saw that he meant no harm. The Aequol motioned to his camp and bade his guest to follow, who understood the request instinctively. On the way, Marrot talked to him in his native, rumbling, tonal language for what seemed like hours at end.

To the Stranger, it was a language unlike any other.

There were morphological variations in contour and pitch so minute and elusive that they made the Mona Lisa smile seem as subtle as fireworks. Fluorescent tissue around the jowls emitted circular luminous pulses as Marrot spoke, the shape and luminosity of such pulses varying with each uttered syllable. The accompanying stripes around the torso also flashed in unison, creating a hypnotic display that fascinated the Stranger to no end.

Marrot told him about the book, how he had done his best to create an account as faithful to his racial history as possible. He told him about personal details that were too trivial to put into the book: how he had met his wife, Imbrethil, whose face name meant Wandlimb the Lightfooted, in one of the Great Orchards and sung a wily sonnet to woo her, and how she had eventually joined him in a duet as he slowly won her over. He told the Stranger about the nursery rhyme he used to sing to his son, who was the apricot of his eye, the kernel of his corn. He had tried to hum such songs in solitude, but without his partners in attendance, it was a fruitless, listless, tuneless exercise.

He told the Stranger that throughout all his existence the Aequol had sought to hear and understand the divine music of the spheres, and seemed to once and again catch some phrase of it, or even a hint of the whole form of it. Yet, he can never be sure that anyone has ever truly heard it, or even that such a grand, perfect thing even exists. Even though it did exist, it was not for Marrot to understand, in his littleness.

But Marrot was content. The Aequol himself was music, a brave theme that also made music of its vast, majestic surroundings, the eternal black sea of storms and stars. The Aequol himself was a beauty in the cosmic scheme of things. It was very good to have been an Aequol. Marrot had resolved to go forward with laughter in his heart and peace, thankful for his past and the courage he had been granted so far. He hoped that, in his book, he had created a fitting conclusion to the brief, stirring, unforgettable music that was the Aequol.

Having reached the camp, Marrot pointed his snout towards the lone, large tent in the middle. Then he wrapped his snout around the barrel-sized glass bottle hanging around his neck and tugged hard, breaking the thick string. With great effort, he stood on his hind limbs, pointing to the rolled papyrus scroll inside the bottle with his fore limbs. Understanding the gesture, the Stranger reached out and took the offered bottle, cradling the huge container gingerly within his arms. Grateful, Marrot offered his thanks and said farewell. His task now finished, Marrot resolved to do something he had been meaning to do for a very long time. He looked at the camp, the trees and the Stranger for one last time.

Then he went for a walk.

The Stranger entered the tent, taking a moment to inspect it. A huge bed layin the right side, neatly made, a handful of personal accessories lumped to one side, arranged in a very orderly fashion. To the left there stood a circular table, towering five feet off the ground. The Stranger climbed the accompanying stool and took the seat, lighting the oil lamp on the table before unstoppering the bottle and taking out the scroll. Even fully rolled, it was about six inches in diameter. He unfurled a couple of meters of the text and spent the next half an hour carefully poring over the first chapter.

It was powerful stuff. It was a tour de force where history, geography, biology and philosophy were seamlessly blended together in a unified, yet utterly coherent narrative; dispassionate objectivism and rousing emotionalism were bonded in perfect marriage. It was euphoric. It was depressive. It was optimistic. It was nihilistic. It was logical. It was whimsical.

In short, it was a little bit of everything.

Reading the book could make one a better person. Or it might make him a worse person. In all honesty, it depended on the person.

Now, some might find it hard to believe that Marrot had produced a masterpiece on his first try. But it is, in fact, no more impossible than a monkey at a typewriter recreating the exact works of Shakespeare at random, which is almost a mathematical certainty if said monkey keeps on typing for eternity. But Marrot didn't have an eternity to finish his work- he had to make do in ten days. What he did have, though, was sheer, unbridled ignorance. There was no degree of talent or bravado to equal it. Were he more well-versed in the craft of professional writing, he would have been a lot more timid and careful.

To the Stranger, however, all of this mattered not one whit. He couldn't read any of it. For him, it was just dried ink on paper. Were it actually written by a Capuchin on a typewriter, he wouldn't know the difference.

He hadn't exactly understood what Marrot had said earlier, either. But he had grasped the gist of the Aequol's intentions, and thus he sought him out again, in hopes of better understanding exactly what he had wanted the Stranger to do.

He didn't have to search far and wide for Marrot. The Stranger found him less than an hour later, by a frozen stream about two miles north of the camp. His massive body was bent over the bank, with more than half of his torso submerged beneath the broken ice. The Stranger pulled the body over and inspected it closely for any signs of life. When he found none whatsoever, his heart was overcome with great sadness.

There were so many good, majestic things lost to time, things he would never know. There were so many evil, terrible things that he wished he had never known. Gods and mortals alike were the playthings of eternity. It just wasn't fair.

Grieving, the Stranger wondered out of the woods. When he found himself faced with the vast, white expanse, struggling to stay upright in the slowly building snowstorm, however, he saw something which rekindled his heart. An immense, golden eye hovered majestically in the distant horizon. The Stranger's path had been revealed to him.

Without further delay, he set off towards his destination.

* * *

><p>The last leg of Alex and Phyla's journey to the forest was characterised by uncomfortable silence.<p>

Firstly, Phyla wasn't entirely thrilled about the huge wolf carcass Alex was carrying on his back, and she made her opinions absolutely clear on the subject on more than one occasion. Secondly, they had searched far and wide and high and low for both James and the wolf once the snowstorm had cleared, but they found neither hide nor hair of either. When Phyla had asked him to reuse those particular skills which had led them to James in the first place, he had answered, "It doesn't work like that."

When asked to elaborate, the lad was too prideful to admit that he didn't know exactly how it worked now that he was dead. So he had simply smiled a shit-eating grin and pointedly ignored any further attempts of roping him into the topic.

It was nearly midnight when they reached the outskirts of the forest.

To be fair, they would have made it to the forest even if they hadn't remembered the directions from James' map. The column of fire issuing forth from deep within the woodland rose high up into the sky and could be seen from miles away. Any nearby creature would be drawn to it, like moths to a flame.

The fire was the light at the end of the tunnel, but what waited beyond for either of them, they didn't know. Under the shadow of the giant pines, immediacy cleared from their minds, leaving doubt and anxiety to take root in the subsequent vacuum. The fertile soil gave birth to numerous questions, and like Eve tempted with the Apple, they couldn't help but partake upon these simple, yet severe conundrums.

Why were they here?

How did they get there?

And where exactly were they going?

Surely, the forest was but a stopover. Even James had said so.

The grand, ongoing narrative of life was meaningless without a beginning and an end. What they were going through was simply the middle, a perpetual Second Act with countless conflicts that were rarely resolved, simply leading to newer problems to contend with. What was the point of an endless journey, if one didn't know where he was coming from, and where exactly he was travelling to?

Alex couldn't help but think of the golden fields of Elysium. He was content in there. His father was with him, and they were to be together for the rest of eternity. They had died good deaths, worthy deaths. There was nothing more that he could ask for.

But suddenly, his father wasn't there anymore. And one day, he wasn't there either.

For Phyla, there had only been the darkness. In a moment of weakness, she had made a binding pact with a dark entity, and her soul was forfeit as per the stipulations. The debt had been collected accordingly upon her death.

She had simply ceased to be.

Imagine her surprise when she found herself lying on the snow. The sudden and simultaneous influx of sensory input from fifteen different organs rendered her nearly catatonic. She had screamed until her vocal cords had become unbearably taut, and then she had screamed some more. She didn't even realise she was doing so until she had felt the warmth of Alex's gangly arms as he had drawn her in and held her in a tight embrace. _"You are going to be okay,"_ he had said, and he had said it with such conviction that Phyla knew that it had to be true. And a moment after, it was.

Fortunately, such morbid recollections didn't carry on for much longer. As they drew ever closer to the fire, distinct crunching sounds issued from below and echoed throughout the forest. Alex halted and glanced aside to see that Phyla had stopped as well. She motioned towards the ground, and Alex followed her gaze downwards to investigate the disturbance.

They were standing in an unusually level carpet of dry leaves that seemed to stretch through the breadth of the forest, bending ever slightly in an arc. Behind them, twin trails of crumpled leaves marked their travelled paths.

"Unusual," Alex said, shifting the weight of the carcass on his shoulders ever so slightly.

"_Very_ unusual," Phyla remarked, now pointing towards the roof of the nearby trees, "once you see that these trees have new leaves already. Besides, look how long those leaves are, and how tiny these dry ones are in comparison."

"So you are saying that this is a trap?"

"More like a Stone Age alarm system. Simple, but effective."

Alex stared at her, and then back at the ground, contemplating their next move. The brush with the raiders had made both of them much more apprehensive. What was the guarantee that the people who had camped in the forest wouldn't exhibit similar hostility, or even that they and the raiders weren't one and the same?

Even if these campers were perfectly normal, good-natured people, chances were that they were contemplating the same dangerous possibilities and taking all appropriate contingencies. It was simply common sense for Alex to do the same.

When he looked up at Phyla once again, she had that telltale gleam in her eyes that told him she was on the same page.

"I think we should cover all our bases," Alex said, "I am going to continue on foot towards the fire, while you..." Alex shifted his gaze towards the sky, obscured by the dense and rangy branches of the giant pines, and pointed upwards with his index finger, "give us some recon, maybe even close air support if the situation calls for it. The tree canopy won't obscure your visibility too much, would it?"

Phyla stared at him, eyebrows raised, mouth contorted in a goofy half-smirk, half-frown combination that had '_Are you joking?' _written all over it_._

"Let me guess," Alex said, matching her attitude with a puckish smile of his own, "something about you navigating the asteroid fields in two parsecs, right?"

The smirk on Phyla's face disappeared, and the frown became even more acute.

"Two _parsecs?_ Tell me Alex, have you ever run a marathon in twenty miles?"

Alex blinked.

"Is that supposed to be a trick question?"

"My point exactly."

Phylla waited for a good ten seconds for the penny to drop on Alex, and then sighed exasperatedly when she saw that wasn't going to happen.

"Well, I will get on with it, then." she said, levitating off the ground and soaring upwards, passing beyond the cover of the pines and Alex's sight.

Alex slapped himself on the head when he finally understood the punchline.

He laid down the carcass momentarily and flexed his shoulders as he reached for sword and unsheathed it. The corpse was starting to smell in the relative humidity of the forest. He couldn't help but wonder how long it would be before the worms start incubating, too.

On the verge of some serious reevaluation, Alex was still intent on sticking through with his decision. He had every right to want a trophy as an acknowledgement of his achievements. After all, Hercules had the Nemean Lion and no one seemed to complain when he wore its skin for thousands of years.

Then again, no one complained when he wore skirts, either.

Once again taking the burden upon his shoulders, Alex set off, wielding his sword in one hand, balancing the weight of the carcass with the other, eyes and ears minutely searching for any signs of the campers. The leaves crumpled under his feet he walked on, heralding his arrival to any and all listeners. The fire towered over him, over the tallest of the giant pines, and its dying embers grew bolder with every step he took.

He could feel the presence of another mind nearby, by virtue of his fell power. The outline of this mind grew more distinct as Alex drew closer, and he found its contours to be strangely familiar, though recognition eluded him at the moment. Regardless, he pressed on.

The texture of the mind softened as Alex continued his probing. Initially, it was cold and rigid, tough and inflexible like the door of a bunker designed to withstand nuclear impact. Eventually, it turned warm and gooey, the ten-inch thick titanium door now a sleek curtain of brain matter that only required the gentlest push.

And push Alex did, but ever so slightly. He bore no malicious intent towards whoever this mind belonged to.

This was simply insurance.

When he came upon the clearing, what struck him immediately was the felled freshly cleared area. It was marked by nine tree stumps, which were hewn unevenly and often at odd angles, as though their trunks were cut through in one swing. Such a feat suggested a combination of brute force and precision that was unlikely to be found in an axe or a chainsaw.

Immediately afterwards, Alex saw the fire in its full glory.

A massive effigy was burning, not more than ten meters away from the felled trees. Hoisted on a raised platform, it was a wooden boat, long and narrow, easily over thirty feet in length,helmed by two dragons at both ends. Its sides were adorned by dozens of small, round shields. There seemed to be something on the deck, but the boat was raised too high for Alex to clearly see.

Although a great deal of the boat had been reduced to ashes, its craftmanship was still apparent, even to Alex's untrained eye. Obviously, a great deal of care had been put into its making. Whatever lackings the maker had in genuine skill, he had more than made up for it with his meticulous eye for detail.

Alex looked at the boat with unguarded awe, momentarily forgetting his caution. It was then that he realised what this must be.

He had just walked into a Viking funeral.

Suddenly, a clear, resounding voice cut through the silence like the sharpest rapier.

"Come then, huntsman! Let us put an end to this dance."

The voice issued from beneath the boat, and soon a tall figure appeared besides the platform. He was a dark blot set against the brightness of the fire, the details of his appearance overwhelmed by the sheer intensity of the flames.

"You are a hunstman, are you not?" the stranger jeered, his inflections becoming more forceful as he approached,"You strut and preen like a boy-king, ignorant of his powers, striding boldly into lands where he holds no authority."

Alert, Alex removed his hand from the carcass, which fell to the ground with a loud thud. He assumed a kenjutsu stance, holding his sword in front of his body and pointing it downwards. It was meant to convey an apparent weakness: a bait that could be followed up with a quick upward cut. He stared minutely at the stranger, pushing everything else beyond his periphery.

The stranger strode towards him with certitude and purpose. The steel of his chainmail glistened more and more as he moved away from the pyre. Still, the majority of his features remained obscured under the moonless sky.

Alex had just the one advantage, and now was as a good a time as any to use it. He dug deeper into the stranger's mind, activating his power, letting it flow over the man's psyche in waves.

The maneuver brought immediate results. The stranger stopped still and stooped his head, breathing fiercely for a few tense moments.

Then he shook his head violently and resumed walking once again.

"Perhaps...you do not know me." the stranger said, his voice muted down to nearly a whisper. "Let me educate you. Fear and uncertainty have been my eternal companions. They have plagued me in dreaming and waking. They whispered fell things into my ears, as they do even now. And not without good reason. I have seen their accursed prophecies come true before my very eyes."

Alex felt uncharacteristically squeamish. He had heard the boasts and taunts of gods and monsters alike, but none had been uttered with such conviction. There had always been self-assurance, but there was always a flaw in that fervor: varying degrees of arrogance that he could exploit to his advantage. But there was none of that here: there was pride, but it was tempered a thousand fold by humbling experience.

Anxious, Alex tightened his grip more and more on the stranger's mind. The man was now less than fifteen feet away, and still Alex could not make out his appearance amidst the interplay of the darkness of the night and the overwhelming brilliance of the flames. His steps slowed as he grew closer, and his breathing became more laboured.

"Tell me one thing...hunstman." the stranger broke off into a fit of coughs, taking a moment to recover before continuing. "Do you know how it feels to have everything you had being taken away from you? Do you know how it feels to have your flaws exploited? To be deconstructed? Do you know how it feels to watch dreams die?

"I have known such things. I have fallen to such depths. Yet still I stand. Tell me, hunstman, can you say the same?"

The Stranger clasped the hilt of his sword, hanging by his side. In a swift motion, he drew it out, and the steel of the massive claymore shone with an unnatural, blinding intensity. It illuminated the man's purple tunic, his large, puffy woolen cape, and most importantly, his face, framed by a chainmail cowl and helmed by a gold circlet.

It took one glance at the man's proud features for Alex to know who this was. Burning with shame, he immediately relinquished his hold on the man's mind and dropped to his knees, embedding his blade into the ground.

"You are Balder the Brave. Balder Odinson, King of Asgard."

"Aye, I was King. I was the Last King of Asgard. But I am King no longer. A fortunate turn of events! But you...!"

Sheathing his blade, the man that was Balder strode over to Alex, the alarm in his posture rapidly giving way to unbridled mirth. When he stood toe-to-toe with the lad, he gave Alex a careful appraisal, from head to toe to katana, before letting out a hearty guffaw.

"I know you! Phobos, god of Fear, son of War! Ha!"

"I prefer Alex, or Alexander if you please." he smiled nervously, still acutely conscious of his gaffe. "Umm, look, I meant no disrespect."

"None taken." Balder gently clasped Alex's shoulders and pulled him to his feet. "Rise, kinsman! No god should have to bow to another. Don't feel ashamed about this misunderstanding. It was, after all, mutual. And to be expected, if you consider past engagements between our Pantheons. Who could forget the legendary duel between my brother, Thor, and your uncle, Hercules, over the bragging rights of crossing a bridge? Or the titanic battle between Zeus Pater and Odin All-Father, which shook the roots of the World Ash like never before? Come, Alexander! We shall laugh about this in due time."

"Well, if you say so." Alex managed to muster a small smile as he sheathed his sword.

Suddenly, Balder looked up, his eyes dilated. "And who's this?"

Alex felt a familiar draft of gentle breeze blow past his frame and turned to see Phyla descending to the ground. She didn't seem to be the least bit impressed by this latest turn of events, if her barely restrained scowl was anything to judge by.

"Finally." Alex said, grinning pointedly, "You know, I was wondering when you were going to show up."

"Oh, you two were having just the most _scintillating _conversation, and I didn't want to interrupt." She smiled sweetly at Balder before glaring daggers at the teen. "So, god of Fear, huh?"

Exasperated, Alex stared at her, lips cramped and eyes furrowed. He never took kindly to heckling. His expression loosened when he realised that she did have a valid reason for being cross with him.

"Well, you never asked." he said, beaming. "Anyways, introductions...Phyla-Vell," he swung his hands towards her as though to present her, and then did the same with Balder, "Balder the Brave."

Phyla gave Balder a casual look-over before smiling again, this time with sincerity.

"Hey!" she extended her hand, "Pleased to meet you."

Balder grasped her fingers, delicately turning them around before giving a quick peck on the glove. Phyla turned beetroot red the moment after.

"Milady, if I may be so bold...a maiden of fairer skin my eyes have never seen."

"Umm. Thanks," she said, a bit too hastily, "I appreciate the complement...but I am otherwise engaged, you see."

Balder smiled good naturedly as he let go of her hand. "Then I would certainly like to meet the lucky man someday."

Phyla shook her head, waving her hands to emphasize her dismissal. "Not a man."

"Ah." Balder's eyes wandered as he nodded sagely. He laughed softly before saying, "Regardless, my sentiment stands as it is."

"Then I appreciate that as well!" Phyla said, and this time, she meant it.

There was a time when he thought such courtship to be the product of imagination spurred on by overindulgence of ale. That misconception had been eventually rectified with the passage of years. By now, he found it to be a simple thing, hardly cause for bewilderment in a world where Loki had sired a wolf and a serpent and given birth to an eight-legged horse.

Balder eyed Alex questioningly when he saw the lad slinging the wolf carcass over his shoulders once again. Noticing his scrutiny, Alex shrugged, feeling that he should clear the air about the matter once and for all.

"No, I am not hungry, and yes, I want to eat it anyway. What's so wrong with that?"

"Well, Alexander...it just seems needlessly cruel. We are dead, and so is that poor creature. I just..."

Balder stopped short when Phyla shot him a furtive, meaningful glance. _Let it go,_ she was saying. She didn't like it either, but this was obviously important to the lad.

Balder gave a barely perceptible nod in understanding. He sympathised with the teenager's need for validation through trophies all too well. That was the work of the gods' blood in him, Balder wagered. He just would have preferred for the boy to crave a more harmless object than a corpse.

"Well now," Balder grinned from ear to ear and slapped his hands together, "this is no good place for a conversation, is it? Come, my friends! Dawn is almost upon us. The camp is but an hour away at a good walking pace. Shall we get going then?"

Of course, Phyla and Alex were only all too relieved to take him up on the proposal.

Balder took one last look at the dying embers of the funeral ship. The flames were eating away at its framework now. Of the deck, he could see that nothing remained, but the glass barrel full of parchment, which was only mildly scorched. This surprised him, but he thought nothing of it.

Without further ado, the three struck a new path.


	9. Threads of the Norns

It was dawn. And, to Phyla and Alex's chagrin, the mist was back.

It wasn't nearly as dense as it had been at its peak. The sky was as featureless and grey as ever. Yet, once again there was a soft, warm glow that seemed to have dispersed through the air, passing through the rare droplets of water here and there to create minuscule, isometric rainbow displays.

The light fell on Balder too, as he lay crouched in front of a particularly old giant pine, using his knife to cut herbs from its roots. The light reflected strangely on his body, as though it were a mirror. It created an ethereal glow, a dim aura that shifted ever so slightly.

Though this effect was transient, it endowed him with a presence that was fit for a god-king.

"He's _weird," _Phyla said, drooping and tilting her head askew towards Alex. The two were standing some ten feet away from the Asgardian, who had stopped abruptly upon spotting the herbs, proclaimed that they were very rare indeed and gotten down to collecting them with minimum fuss.

Alex looked up at her with a wry smirk. "And _we _aren't?" He let the words hang for a while for further emphasis. "I see what you mean, though."

The next thirty seconds passed in unremarkable silence, after which Balder put away his knife and rose to his feet. As he walked towards them, the optical illusion that was the aura passed. Balder himself seemed to have not noticed, or if he did, then he paid no heed to it. He was otherwise occupied with the four plants he was carrying, two each gripped firmly by the stems in both hands. The plants had long leaves, spread out around white, unbloomed flowers.

"Here!" Balder held the plant under Phyla's chin invitingly, and she obliged, drooping her head to take a sniff. He did the same with Alex, who entertained his request in similar fashion. To both, it smelled refreshingly sweet: there was a hint of morning dew, and a touch of mustiness that reminded Alex of apple orchards. "Soothes the mind, does it not? Quite useful in the art of healing. The Ljosalfar grew it, many Ragnaroks ago. Aseas they called it once, when Frey ruled them. That changed to Athea, after their light-elven tongues grew less flowery, and their minds less cultured. Last I knew of it, it was called Aethel, and it grew only in the shadow of Yggdrasil. Then Malekith razed Alfheim, and that was the end of it."

Balder sighed.

"Aye, this is most fortuitous indeed. But let us away, friends. After all, tardiness is seldom rewarded with good fortune."

They started walking again, with Balder leading the way. They had covered most of the distance, he told them, and they would be noticing the distinct lack of trees soon enough. It was not all he said, however.

"Now I feel that I must ask this, as a host should to his guests. What business brings you to Niffleheim, of all places?"

"Oh," Phyla said, "That's what this place is called?"

"Aye." Balder's tone grew tense and somber. "Niffleheim, the Land of Mist. Though I did not recognise it at first, when I found myself here. Much has changed since I last braved its desolate plains. Now there are mountains, and glaciers, and forests! The dead walk upon its valleys, alongside the living no less! Men, beasts and creatures I have never seen.'Tis mighty strange, indeed."

"So..." Phyla paused, taking some time to process this new information. "Are these changes supposed to be a good thing, or a bad thing?"

"That depends, and remains to be seen." Balder turned his head sideways and glanced knowingly. "Regardless, I did ask you a question, and I still await the answer."

"Oh, yeah. About that..." Phyla laughed apologetically, and then shared a look with Alex, widening her eyes quizzically. _How much should we tell him? _Alex pursed his lips and rolled his eyes. _How much do we know, anyways?_

They kept it short and simple. They mostly stuck to how they were enjoying (or not enjoying) their afterlives in peace when they were suddenly thrust into this frozen wasteland. They said that they didn't know what they were supposed to do there and they were just trying to get by for the time being. They decided to refrain from saying about James just yet. That was a whole another story, and there would be time enough for that later, preferably when they were safe and decompressing near a camp fire.

Balder kept it short from his end as well. He wasn't in a hurry to explain just what he was doing in Limbo and how he got there. Immortality had a curious effect on him: it made him simultaneously more amiably disposed to share a great many things and more predisposed to keep other matters private. He had formed countless acquaintances in his many years, but he could count the number of friends he had made on the back of his hand. And with good reason, too. His experience with his immediate family had been a great teacher in that regards.

Balder wasn't oblivious either. He could see the patterns, draw the parallels. People didn't fall out of the sky for no reason, not where he came from. Nevertheless, he would rather wait until such doubts were validated than speak of them without forethought. Such hastiness in a god never brooked good rewards.

In the meanwhile, Alex had questions of his own to ask. "So...when we met, you were performing someone's last rites, right?"

Balder nodded.

"So whose funeral was it, then?"

Balder took a deep breath and then exhaled. "I wish I knew, Alexander. I wish I knew."

Balder told them about the strange, gentle giant he had met in the camp. He told them about the indecipherable book and the drowning. He spoke of it briefly, for the randomness of it all was maddening. He had seen the rows of unhoisted tents, and gathered the giant's personal belongings and mementos of his kin, and through these things he could glimpse into the creature's grief and desolation. But in such gazing he was forever an outsider, peeping through an opaque window. Any true meaning to this tragedy had long escaped his grasp.

"Well, lucky him." Alex said after Balder had finished his tale. "He took the easy way out of this place."

"Hah." Balder smiled. There was an earnestness in this gesture that was almost heartbreaking, his eyes dilating to reveal the pits full of scars forged by years of experience. "Alexander, you carry yourself proudly. I suppose you fell in battle?"

Alex simply nodded.

"And you as well, Phyla?"

Phyla blinked, her throat suddenly feeling parched. "Yeah," she said, with difficulty, "Something like that."

Balder blinked back in understanding. It was a small comfort, but to Phyla, it meant the world.

"I have fallen in battle, as well. I have fallen in battles big and small, righteous and wrathful, glorious and terrible. I have gone with valor, and I have gone in ignominy. I have been felled by giants and mistletoes and many creatures in-between. I have died surrounded by my loved ones, and I have died surrounded by treachery. I have even died in my sleep.

"I have died forty-seven times, Alexander. There are good deaths and there are bad deaths. But there are no easy deaths. Aye, life can be pleasant. Afterlife can be peaceful. Death is never easy."

Soulful nods and solemn glances were exchanged. Silence took hold by unspoken, unanimous consent. Wallowing in misery and self-pity was something none of them wished to indulge in for too long.

They continued in such subdued fashion. A moment of soothing peace overtook their apprehension. This moment expanded into minutes, and eventually they could feel, instinctually, that everything would be alright if they would just keep on walking. It was right that they were doing so. This conviction provided a newfound numbness that enveloped their minds. Soon, there was nothing but the moment. They felt a kinship to each other, and even the land itself, that defied all logic and reason. But in that moment, such belonging required no explanation. It all made sense.

In the end, it was but a moment.

They came upon a grisly sight that brought their minds back to immediate reality. A white rabbit hung limply from the branch of a young pine, the metal snare around its tiny neck even then cutting into its flesh. At the foot of the tree, another rabbit —this one black, with sleek, shining coat- was fatally tethered to the lean trunk of the young tree. Its neck was twisted hideously, and its paws were clasped in a death-grip around the snare. The smell wasn't as strong as one would expect, but it was starting to build all the same.

Alex approached the tree with morbid fascination. He was but inches away from the corpse of the black rabbit when he felt a strong hand grasp his shoulder.

"Careful there."

Balder nudged Alex aside and prodded at the leaf-covered ground demonstratively. The unmistakable clink of metal sounded against his boot. He picked up a broken branch and dropped it at the suspicious spot. The jaws of the foothold trap swung shut immediately afterwards, its serrated teeth snapping the feeble branch in twain.

Alex felt a corresponding tingle in his shins. He smiled at Balder and shrugged. Inwardly, he felt stupid for not having noticed the trap earlier. His situational awareness definitely needed some work, he mused.

"That's…pretty clever, actually." Phyla said when she saw the closed trap. "It nets you some more meat on the side. No idea why anyone would want to eat predators, though. That's about as gamey as it gets, honestly."

Alex smiled, lips pouty and lopsided as he spotted Phyla trying to burn a hole into the corpse on his shoulders with the briefest of stares. Balder was already busy cutting off the snares with his knife.

"I dunno," he said, "you could get a pretty good coat out of the deal. Especially if you manage to do it without ruining the fur or tainting the meat. Tell you what, a coat would be real nice. Considering how ridiculous the cold is here…"

Phyla drew her breath sharply and blinked. The subsequent smirk was barely noticeable. _Well-played, you nasty schmag._

Balder smiled, his eyes flitting knowingly between Alex and Phyla. He set the rabbits aside by the foot of the tree before taking a moment to inspect the foothold trap.

"These are unusual contraptions," Balder said, temple creased and chin resting on fist, "especially for giants who are leaf-eaters and lack thumbs."

"You think someone else passed through this forest?" Alex asked.

"Aye. Probably a lot of someone elses. You will see what I mean when we reach the camp. Wherever they were going, they must have made haste, to leave such tools behind. Metal is hard to come by in these parts."

Now Balder shifted his attention back to the rabbits. He picked up the black one and turned its hanging form around, as though appraising it for some hitherto unrevealed purpose. Then he sniffed it, and exhaled. Apparently satisfied, he fetched one of the severed snares and wrapped it around the bellies of the two rabbits.

Of course, this drew decidedly mixed reactions from the two spectators. Ultimately, it was Alex who decided to voice his opinions.

"So...whatever happened to the dead having no use for meat?"

Balder glanced sideways at the lad as he twisted one end of the wire into a makeshift hook. He fastened the hook to his side, just above his belt and rose to his feet.

"You misunderstand. They are not for my consumption. I have live ones under my care. Younglings, in fact."

Phyla perked up considerably. "Really...? Wow. That's interesting."

Alex blinked, managing to muster enough restraint to replace his impending scowl with a shrug. There were only so many surprises he could take before his head started aching.

"Apologies if this came off abruptly. I was saving the matter for afterwards."

"I see!" Phyla said, eagerness apparent in her voice. "So tell us about them. You know, all the usual stuff."

"There is not much to say at the moment, but I will endeavor regardless." Balder paused, affecting a pensive gaze as he and the other two resumed their trek towards the camp. "I rescued them from the cold. An unusual lot, certainly. There is a man from Midgard, like yourself," Balder motioned his head towards Alex, "We met before, once. A champion of the commoners, if I recall correctly. Then there are the she-wolf and the two cubs. Of course, they can't be her own, for..."

Balder stopped short when he saw the unmistakable, synchronised signs of recognition manifest on their bewildered features.

"You know these creatures, I presume?"

Alex and Phyla stared at each other, incredulous and apprehensive. Could they dare to hope that...?

"Umm." Phyla started, feeling unusually trepid as she searched for the words. "That man you were talking about. Could you describe him in more detail?"

Balder obliged.

A plethora of reactions followed. This lead to some more talking, comparing of notes and a lot of other things not particularly relevant to our tale. General disbelief, unrestrained joy and spurts of incoherence overwhelmed any pertinence of such interactions.

Eventually, Alex said, "You know what? Let's leave all this for until we are all at the camp, when I can finally get this thing off my shoulders. A sore neck is just not conducive to a good conversation."

This was unanimously agreed upon. Once again they set off for their destination, with hastiness and lifted hearts.

Of course, now Balder had no doubts. That would have been true even if he were dumb, deaf and blind.

What he had just heard was validation enough for him.

* * *

><p>"And that, my friend, is how all of us came to be here," Balder said as he spun the wooden stick, the wolf meat turning with it over the modest fire.<p>

"A very interesting yarn it is, no doubt about that," James said. He tried to grin, but it turned into a pained grimace.

It had been three hours since they had reached the camp and found James. They were all there, huddled near the warmth of the fire, save for the wolves, who rested inside the tent. It was morning now, and something like the Sun, but not quite, peeked through the canopy of the trees. The fog remained, but it was more of a mild, even pleasant distraction. It revealed more about the forest than it hid. Distant chirping of birds echoed through the air, and every so often rodents and other small mammals ventured into the open space of the camp, slipping in and out with indifference to its inhabitants.

Phyla stared longingly at the fire, arms wrapped around drawn knees. She wouldn't touch the meat, though her stomach growled in phantom pain at the sight. Balder was now crushing the healing herbs he had collected into a green paste with a mortar and pestle. He had no use for food: he had long grown accustomed to its absence during his vigils in Limbo.

Alex, of course, was determined to enjoy his meal, but he was finding it a very difficult task. The wolf was old: very old, it had turned out. The smell it had given off during its skinning would have been enough to put him off, but he was feeling especially obstinate today. His father had once remarked that wolf meat tasted just like chicken, but had neglected to mention that it needed to be prepared in a very specific, delicate way. Balder the Brave, in all his braveness, was a warrior, a king and a fine storyteller, but his culinary skills left much to be desired.

James hadn't fully recovered from the attack, but he was getting there. It was good to keep his hands busy in the meantime, even with something as mundane as kindling a fire. With diligence, he continued to hack away at the log in his hand with his knife, trimming into a trimmer and trimmer shape. It was important to let the fire breathe.

There was something very funny going on with the knife, he noted. It was the same knife that had been blunted in battle a day ago. Yet here it was, sharp enough to prick skin at the slightest touch. How that had happened, James didn't have the foggiest clue. He wasn't complaining, at any rate.

"So…quite a posse we have got here." James chuckled. "Three wolves, two gods, a gal from space and little old me. That all of us, huh?"

"Were you expecting anyone else?" Balder asked.

"Yeah. A scarecrow, a tinman and a lion. But this will do."

James sighed. These people made him feel old. And that was saying something, as he figured Balder had to be a few thousand years old.

"It makes you wonder, though," Phyla spoke suddenly, "doesn't it?"

"What does?"

"Meeting each other like this, in the middle of nowhere. What are the odds, right? There seem to be so many people wandering around us, lost and suffering and dying." She looked at the downed tents around the fire, wistfully rubbing her cold arms. "Why do we deserve to be saved? It seems so random."

"Well, let me tell you one thing…" James paused as Balder passed him the bowl of green paste. He opened the primitive gauge bandage wrapped around his right arm and winced at the sight beneath it. The flesh was raw and pink, like that of a freshly skinned salmon, save for the wound, black and dull. "There's always something random and terrifying happening around us. We just don't pay that much attention to it. Hundreds of species go extinct every day, back on Earth. Every day, 5000 people die in car accidents, and that's just in the US. So there's all kinds of bad randomness going on. Now, we stumble onto a bit of _good _randomness? Let me tell ya, I ain't gonna look that gift horse in the mouth."

"That's not a good analogy, though." Phyla smiled faintly. "You are talking about nature and human complications. People have some idea about how those things happen. What we have here is just pure cosmic coincidence."

"Well, you got me there, then." James shrugged. He applied the paste to his arm, the skin reacting acidly to the herbs as he did so. A menthol-like cool fire spread past his skin and through his veins, nursing the numbed muscles and joints back to life.

"There's nothing random about us, though." Alex spoke at length, almost mumbling.

"Yeah? How do you figure that?"

"I just know." Alex put down his piece of the meat. He had long lost his appetite. "It's hard to explain. Before, trying to see into the future was like tapping into a limitless reservoir, an ocean that revealed all the possible paths that could be walked, and the one path that was most likely to be. Now it's more like a shallow, dirty pool. There is only one path, and it's vague and uncertain, with numerous bends. And there's something nudging me towards it, with each waking moment."

Phyla grasped his hand and squeezed it, smiling sadly and meaningfully. James saw the gesture and understood; the lad had never opened up like that in front of anyone before.

It was then that something occurred to James.

"So something is guiding you, you mean?"

"Yeah, I think."

James thought back to where he had been before he had landed in the wasteland. Branches, wrapping around his body like tendrils, guiding him towards the correct path…

Clarity dawned on his mind.

"I think we might be onto something here." He brought out the map from his pouches, and then the ceremonial dagger, the hilt of which now glowed yellow. He placed them on the ground, trying to put the thoughts inside his jumbled, overworked mind into words. Before he could do so, Balder took the knife, and the knife glowed with even more intensity as he held it, twirling it around before breaking off into a sagely smile.

"It is as I thought. Look! Here's a talisman, drawing us together, binding our fates like the threads of the Norns." Balder passed the knife to Alex and Phyla; surprisingly enough, the glow seemed to lessen when in Phyla's presence. "Strange. But that would have to be a mystery for another day. James, how did you come upon this thing?"

James told them all he could remember about Steve the bartender, in what he hoped was the least confusing manner possible. When he had finished, Balder looked grim.

"When I had ventured out into the snow, two days ago, I saw a storm turning in the horizon. It dwarfed the snowstorm that raged then, like the Sun dwarfs the Moon. It consumed everything and left nothing in its wake, only whiteness. A storm that comes for everything." Balder smiled, but sadness weighed heavily on his features. He took the pitcher of water nearby and drunk from it, nearly emptying it in one go. "How I long for mead and ale."

"Geez…I have been in some tough situations before." Phyla said. "I guess we all have. But there's nothing to punch here, is it? It's just nature- no, something larger than nature- and everything swept up it in its wake is just collateral damage. How do we fight something like that? How much of a chance is there of us surviving something like that?"

"I don't know." Alex said. "But there's a chance."

"And that…" James unfurled his map with newfound determination, "would have to be enough."


End file.
